On-line training advice

A career is not what you find but what you create,' says Sarah Berry. 'You need a vision or an idea of what you wish to become. Then you need to take the necessary steps to achieve your vision. Your vision is what will dig you out of the rut, give your career meaning and propel your career forward. Let's establish what training you need to achieve your vision.

Establishing your training needs

It is easier to create your career vision if you have a profession. Think of yourself within your work role. It is important that you think of yourself as part of a profession. What profession are you in? Can you describe your profession in less than 14 words? Are you likely to stay in this profession until you retire? To achieve career success you need a profession. A job is what you do but a profession is your sector of work.

Listed below are nine steps to help you establish your training needs and further your professional development.

Step 1 What skills do you have?

Focus on your job and list the five skills that you use on a daily basis. Try and list both technical skills such as statistical process control, improving quality and production processes and work place risk assessment and soft skills such as negotiation, networking and presentation skills. Rate your skills as excellent, good or poor. Don't fall into the trap of overstating or understating your technical competence. It is important to be honest with yourself. If it helps, show your list to a colleague for a second opinion. Does this person agree with your assessment of your skills?

Step 2 Where do you want to be in three years' time?

Roll the clock forward and allow yourself to imagine how you would like your job to be. Where do you want to live? What do you want to be doing? Are you in the same profession? Are you working for the same company? What do you want to be earning?

Take the time to write it all down. Don't evaluate or reflect upon any of your ideas. You are after are raw ideas at this stage.

Step 3 What skills do you need to work in that environment?

Research your ideas and write down what technical and soft skills you feel you will need. Will technology have an impact on this role? Where are you looking for advice?

Step 4 List the top three skills you will need

Now narrow things down and list the three skills that you will need in the future. What are your current abilities in these three areas?

Step 5 Make the comparison

You have identified the skills that you currently have in step 1 and the skills you will need to succeed in your career in step 4. What can you see? Are there some skills that you will need to kept up-dated? Will some of your skills become irrelevant in the future? If this is the case you don't need to invest in further training of those skills. Hard as it is, you may need to recognise that your time needs to be spent developing new skills for the future.

Step 6 What resources are available to you?

Next you need to review what resources are available to you. How are you going to acquire these skills? What can your current employer do to help you?

Can you get these skills from other sources? Do you need to take action yourself?

Step 7 Make a plan

You need a plan so that you can review your progress. The easiest way to review things is to use the SMART guide. The letters stand for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timescale. Have you been specific enough in terms of your training? Can you measure your progress? Are your goals achievable? Do you feel you are being realistic? Have you a timescale of when you wish to achieve your goal?

Step 8 Create some free time

How much time can you allocate to developing your new skills? It is important that you have a realistic timeframe. Anything between three and five hours per week is good. Can you be disciplined and set aside specific evenings each week? Can you go so far as to blank out these times in your diary?

Step 9 Let's commit

Commitment is crucial if you wish to complete your training. I would encourage you to make your commitment in writing. There are five things that you need to commit to. Let's take a look at these five things.

1. Your Goal. Write down what your goal is. In three years time I want to be ..
2. Your Skills. Write down what skills you need. The three skills I need to ensure I achieve this role are ..
3. Your Plan. Write down how you plan to develop these skills. I will attain these skills by doing the following three things ..
4. Your Measurable Targets. Write down your three monthly, six monthly and yearly targets. In three months I will have achieved.. in six months I will have achieved .. and in a year I will have achieved .....
5. Your Commitment. Write down and sign your commitment to your plan. I am going to put aside . hours per week to acquire these three new skills and then sign and date it. Keep it somewhere safe so that you can refer to it.

Has this advice helped you to identify your training needs? If you are looking for a training course why not consider enrolling on a course with
ICS - the world's No. 1 in home learning.