Are you the sort of person who remains conscious about future planning? If so, you will come across the following terms. The first one will be career and professional development. At the same time, it included personal development. Let’s see what these three terms mean;
A. Career Development
Career development is a method of learning skills that will help an individual in acquiring a sustainable career. Through these methods, students develop skills by keeping in mind that they will need them for making their careers successful. In short, it is the process of career competencies’ development.
B. Professional Development
Professional development bridges career development through personal skill development. There’s no doubt that all three terms aim to improve the skills. But they differ in their purposes as well. In professional development, we improve ourselves to attain career excellence. In general, here, we improve skills according to the current status within an organization.
C. Personal Development
As the name suggests, personal development is an act of achieving person-specific skills for making life easier. In general, personal development refers to the development of skills for the sake of a job. But in actuality, this term is not as narrow as people think it is. This is because it also includes the learning of skills that may never help in professional life. For example, acquiring skills to improve life standards, activities, health, and social society all lie under the scope of personal development.
The terms above relate to career, skills, and professional life. But professional dissertation researchers have given below some skills for students who want to know which ones are necessary for their career, and professional development.
1. Companionship
Companionship is a tool that helps in a better career and professional development. In this process, an individual spares time from his busy schedule for a companion. Spending quality time with a companion itself is a skill. But it helps in learning other skills as well. In an organizational context, a companion is a person who is sharing a room, desk, or even office with you, as a whole. The term companionship is very close in meaning with the term friendship.
Moreover, fulfilling friendship, and companionship are aspects that need active skills. But if a person succeeds in maintaining a healthy relationship with their companion, he will learn new skills every day. So companionship is a strong skill that you must-have for career and professional development.
2. Teamwork
In professional life, we often get confused. Many times our mind gets stuck and we resist thinking appropriately. If you’re working on deadlines and your mind is not ready to cooperate, what will be the possible solution for it? Of course, you will start thinking from a colleagues’ mind. This is what the term teamwork means.
In almost every profession, in one way or another, we have to work in groups. Team collaboration drives the success of every project. Hence, the tip for better team working abilities is a division of labor. Further, the division of labor must be according to the interpersonal skills of all group members. Here, we need to share the responsibilities with others. Other skills that improve team working abilities are as follows;
- Conflict resolution
- Team building
- Relationship building
- Negotiation
- Team management
- Conflict management
3. Leadership
Another top-notch skill for, career and professional development is leadership qualities. In professional life, almost all individuals are graduates and know their work well. Then what makes a person stand out whereas the others don’t? It is most definitely the interpersonal skills. Though, the list of interpersonal skills goes beyond the scope of this article. Among all, a prominent personal skill is that of leadership. Although there are many theories explaining the leadership styles, in general, it is known for helping with effective management. In short, a person’s ability to lead a team is necessary for professional progression. A few attributes that can account for the leadership qualities are as follows;
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- Budgeting
- Coaching
- Coordinating resources
- Goal setting
- Prioritization
- Growth mind-set
- Influence
- Decision making
- Management
- Mentoring
- Meeting management
- Planning
- Politeness
- Positivity
- Accountability
- Information gathering
- Calm under pressure
4. Time management
No matter at what stage of life you’re living, time management is a gem. Have you ever noticed why we send our children to the Montessori’s? Though in Montessori, students neither do classwork nor get homework. But still, we send them there. The reason is to make a routine for our child. Behind every good routine is an effective time management skill. Have you noticed why Covid brings challenges for all of us? Although on one side, it brings flexibility for us. Then why do people get depressed by this flexibility? The reason here is flawed time management skills. A majority of us lag in managing flexibility, and this ruins our daily routine while making us frustrated as well.
Hence for career and professional development, we must focus on time management. And to improve time management abilities, we can consider the following points;
- Attentive task handling
- Following the deadlines
- Punctuality
- Self-motivation
- Project management
5. Communication
Like other career and professional development aspects, communication skills also have no parallel. There’s no doubt that effective communication bridges confusion and clarity. It also helps in clarifying your position. Irrespective of the profession, even the students also need to communicate with clarity. To develop good communication skills, you must know the type of effective communication. It also helps in defining a baseline for you too.
In professional life, you should have good email writing skills. To make a place at the workstation, you must have good presentation, or speaking skills as well. However, in interviews, the interviewers keenly observe your communication potential. Hence, learning good verbal, and written skills from early childhood will prepare you for professional progression. For good communication skills, you can work on the following aspects;
- Handshaking
- Humbleness
- Brainstorming
- Networking
- Listening
- Interviewing
- Clear perceptions
- Confidence
- Social skills, and many others.
6. Problem-solving attitude
The skill that I preferably want to see in students is a focused problem-solving attitude. Are you a marketer? If yes, you have to face dozens of challenges every day. Therefore, if you are a tutor, you have to cater to students with versatile backgrounds. If you are a doctor, you may come across unexceptional situations every day. And if you are a researcher, you may get puzzled in knowing the facts. In all situations, the only hope will be problem-solving skills. But this is entirely natural. Sometimes we become conscious about our survival. But a calm mind with a problem-solving attitude can ensure a good professional survival rate. So keep calm, and keep working on these career and professional development skills for a better future.