Plan your career path and follow it

MONTREAL — How does one go about planning a career path? And what steps can be taken to co-ordinate that plan with your employer?

Postmedia News spoke to Michael O’Leary, regional vice-president, Quebec of Robert Half Canada, to find out.

Having an understanding of the industry and job market you’re in is a must, naturally. But workers also need to know where they fit into that market given current trends to determine what’s realistic, what their best path is and how they can achieve their goals.

• Career path planning and job satisfaction

In today’s market, the average worker stays with an employer for four to five years before switching jobs. This means that when entering a company, you want to have a clear understanding of the potential to stay with that employer long-term. In doing so, workers should have an idea of their ability to grow within the company in that time frame and how their goals match up with those of the company.

• Talking to managers about your career plan

Workers should know whether their company has a system set up that establishes the possibility for growth within an organization.

I would recommend employees be proactive and ask for quarterly reviews to obtain feedback and understand what they can do to fasttrack their career within the organization or industry.

• What workers can do if their managers don’t discuss their career path with them

Not all managers are equipped with the right tools to have these discussions. That’s a red flag for a lot of employees. Having a discussion with managers about growth opportunities is one course of action to take in this instance.