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Step 3: What steps do I need to take?

When you know where you want your career to go, you can focus on creating a reasonable and flexible timeline with achievable goals. This helps you set priorities, solidify plans, and find motivation to keep pursuing your career goals. Exploring the IU Staff Competencies will reveal the skills and behaviors related to your career goals and help you plan your accompanying growth and development. Asking your leader (manager or supervisor) for their support will help you uncover more opportunities for growth. Now is also the time to update your resume to make sure it reflects your career goals.

Complete Your Professional Development Plan

Complete the second half of your professional development plan.

Do this:

  • Create a reasonable and flexible timeline with target goals.
  • Ask your leader for support in determining opportunities for growth.

Remember, having goals lets you set priorities, solidify plans, and stay motivated.

Tools & Resources

Professional Development Plan

Explore the IU Staff Competencies

There are competencies required in all jobs. Competencies are observable skills and behaviors that contribute to workplace success. The IU Staff Competencies give everyone at IU a common language to describe how we work together, what to expect from each other, and how to maximize our potential.

IU has determined five core competencies that all employees need to demonstrate. Each role at IU also has associated career level competencies that employees should demonstrate in those roles. Career level competencies give you a clear picture of the skills required to progress and can help you determine what skills you need to develop for a new role.

Do this:

  • Explore the competencies to determine the ones you currently have and which additional ones will help you achieve your career goals.
  • Consider how you might develop additional competencies by building related skills and adopting new behaviors.
  • Discuss the competencies you’d like to develop with your leader and ask for their support.
  • Use the related competency resources and tools to develop those competencies.

Set SMART Goals

Goal-setting is an important part of career planning. It’s not enough just to have goals—it’s critical to have goals that you can actually achieve. The SMART goal framework can help you create attainable goals.

Update Your Resume

Your resume is an important piece of the career planning process. It gives you the opportunity to highlight what you offer in a new role or position. If you haven't updated your resume for some time, knowing where to start may seem challenging. These resources will help you focus on the process and provide tips to maximize your resume. There are also numerous resources available online when you're ready to explore further.