Professional Development 2013 On Your Marks, Get Set, Plan!

Phil's Careers Blog Professional Development 2013: On Your Marks, Get Set, Plan! By Phil Gérard Appeared initially in Canadian Fundraising and Philanthropy /articles/Professional-development-2013-On-your-marks-get-set-plan Happy New Year! I enjoy the month of January. It at all times seems like a brand new start as we look at our lives, our careers and new opportunities for development and self-enchancment. January often brings me the best number of inquiries for upcoming job opportunities in addition to requests for informational interviews. But I don’t wish to write an article about looking for new profession opportunities, since I actually have simply written about not leaving a job too early in your tenure. Growth opportunities could be discovered right the place you might be. The beginning of the yr is a superb time to look at your professional growth, determine your targets and create an motion plan. What’s my long-time period profession goal? Maybe your current position just isn't your dream job, but the expertise you are gaining will help you to get there ultimately. It is necessary, however, to know what your lengthy-time period career objective is. Only then can you've a strategic strategy to your profession improvement and ensure the experience you might be gaining is related to what you want to be doing. For instance, you could want to be a frontline major items officer however presently you might be in a task behind the scenes supporting the most important presents group. The expertise you’re gaining is valuable and related to your final profession goal. On the opposite hand, you could be losing your time. Getting face-to-face expertise by going out on donor calls is nice if you want a career in major gifts however not in case you have decided you want to go away fundraising altogether. In that case, cease investing in the incorrect kind of professional development and begin investing in your new profession. What do I need to obtain this year? Look at some key areas and abilities you need to develop this 12 months â€" pa rticular aims quite than overall objectives or visions. The objectives will help you achieve your objective. If your goal is to turn out to be a significant gifts officer, an objective may be to find a mentor at work who will take you on a selected number of donor calls. Find the best opportunities Now that you understand how you want to develop, look at the offerings which might be available. Try to pick conferences by relevance and never by location. We have some nice Canadian professional growth options. Every November, AFP Toronto’s Congress options relevant Canadian content material and many different tracks that supply one thing for each sort of fundraising skilled. In the West there is AFP Calgary’s Banff Compass, which will be offered once more in 2013. Conferences usually are not everything There are many nice skilled development alternatives in addition to conferences. Workshops or persevering with schooling lessons are nice if you want to broaden your knowledge in a s ure area, such as perfecting your Microsoft Excel skills, accounting, or studying a database program. One of one of the best professional actions I have ever accomplished is joining a Toastmasters club. Toastmasters is not only about public speaking but about skilled communication generally, time administration, sales, etiquette, and a lot extra. Get a head start on 2013 by planning your skilled development proper. As well as this web site, a number of others (AFP, CASE, CCAE, Charity Village) may help you find the proper academic alternatives. I additionally invite you to go to my weblog and observe me on Twitter for professional improvement alternatives. All the most effective for your profession in 2013!! For extra data, follow @ philscareers, or go to or Post navigation Fill in your particulars below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. (Log Out/ Change) You are commenting utilizing your Google account. (Log Out/ Change) You are commenting using your Twitter account. (Log Out/ Change) You are commenting utilizing your Facebook account. (Log Out/ Change) Connecting to %s Notify me of new comments by way of e mail. Notify me of latest posts by way of e mail. Email Subscription Enter your e-mail handle to observe my NEW blog and keep on high of the latest profession opportunities and fundraising information. Sign me up! Follow On Twitter Browse by Category Phil’s Careers Tweets Error: Twitter did not reply. Please wait a couple of minutes and refresh this web page.