Career Mapping: What is it and how to do it?

In today's rapidly evolving job market, having a clear career direction is essential. Given the number of career options available across so many different industries, one can easily get overwhelmed while trying to create a career plan. 

To help overcome this gap, you can resort to career mapping to gain clarity and direction as you navigate the working world. 

Career mapping is a strategic tool that helps individuals plot their professional journey, set goals, and make informed decisions about their career trajectory. In this blog, we'll explore what career mapping entails and provide practical steps on how to do it effectively. 

What is Career Mapping?

Career mapping is the process of visualising your career path, identifying your professional goals, and outlining the steps needed to achieve them. It involves assessing a number of factors to create a roadmap for your career advancement. The factors are: 

• Skills
• Interests
• Values
• Aspirations

To start with career mapping, you need to analyse your strengths and weaknesses, understand which industry you are willing to work in and have some clarity about your current situation versus where you would want to be x number of years down the line. 

Why is Career Mapping Important?

For a student who is starting in the corporate world or for a working individual who is confused about where to go next, career path mapping offers numerous benefits, including:

1. Clarity

Career mapping provides clarity about your career direction and helps you understand where you want to go professionally. By analysing your interests and values, career mapping gives you some clarity about where to allocate your resources in the future. 

2. Goal Setting

It enables you to set realistic and achievable career goals aligned with your aspirations. Career mapping provides a structured framework for defining your goals in a way that is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART)

3. Decision Making

It helps you make informed decisions about job opportunities, skill development, and professional growth. By aligning your choices with your career goals and values, you can make choices that support your long-term success and fulfilment. This ultimately helps you maintain your well-being and empowers you to build a career that reflects your values, interests, and aspirations. 

4. Progress Tracking

Career mapping serves as a tool for tracking your progress and celebrating your achievements along the way. Career path mapping can help you boost your confidence and motivation and allow you to make adjustments as needed to stay aligned with your evolving aspirations and circumstances.

How to Do Career Mapping

Follow these steps to create your career map:

Step 1: Self-Assessment

1. Identify your strengths, weaknesses, interests, and values. You can also make a SWOT table (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) to compartmentalise and assess your aspects easily. 

2. Reflect on your past experiences, accomplishments, and areas for improvement. Refer to your resume and personal achievements and analyse whether they can help you along your career mapping journey. 

3. Consider your long-term career aspirations and what success looks like to you. Answer the "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" question in your mind! A more creative way to work with this would be to make a vision board of your expectations from yourself, and this also makes for a fun activity!

Step 2: Define Your Goals

1. Set short-term and long-term career goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). It is okay not to have a sure-shot idea of what you want to achieve a few years down the line, as goals keep changing depending on various factors. That being said, it is helpful to set career goals that are realistic and in tandem with your personal goals.

2. Prioritise your goals based on their importance and relevance to your overall career vision. 

Step 3: Research and Explore

1. Research different industries, job roles, and career paths that align with your interests and goals. This is one of the most important things to do as a part of career mapping, as it gives you an idea of what lies beyond what you are trying to explore. For example, you may be great at marketing in the education industry. Still, as a young professional, it may be more helpful for you to explore different industries to gain as much exposure as you can. This is why it is a good idea to look up different industries and take internships and courses that will help you grow. 

2. Explore networking opportunities, informational interviews, and industry events to gain insights into various career options. Make the most out of networking events, placement drives, and career fairs to expand your professional connections and gather valuable information about different industries and roles. 

Step 4: Identify Development Opportunities

1. Assess the skills and qualifications required for your target roles. Many times it so happens that you may be qualified for a role that requires a certain background and cut-off age, but you may not have some hard skills and soft skills for it. To fix this, you will find many courses online to get you started. 

2. Identify areas where you need to develop or enhance your skills through education, training, or hands-on experience. This will give you real-time experience and a first-hand peep into the work that you are career mapping for! You can also add skills that you would like to learn to the roadmap for upskilling, even as a student. Online resources can help you upskill without having to burn a hole in your student bank account and thus keep up with your career roadmap. 

Step 5: Create Your Career Roadmap

1. The most important step is to create the career map. Visualise your career path by creating a timeline or flowchart that outlines key milestones and achievements. You can find several tools and visualisation software online to help create this map, like Zaffy and Talentguard. Through this, you can select a template of your choice and create your career map. You can also make edits to your template as and when you please, so remember to select a good career mapping tool of your choice. 

2. Break down your long-term goals into manageable steps and set deadlines for achieving them. The career mapping tool can also include a checkbox system to make this more engaging and to give you a sense of achievement!   

Step 6: Review and Adjust

1. Regularly review your career map to track your progress and evaluate whether you're on track to achieving your goals. Reviewing your career map allows you to assess how far you've come since you last checked in. It helps you identify the milestones you've achieved, the skills you've developed, and the experiences you've gained along the way.

2. Be flexible and willing to adjust your career map based on changes in your interests, priorities, or external factors. With evolving personal interests and passions and shifting priorities, you must keep an open mind and adjust your goals. 

Step 7: Careers and their Opportunities

After knowing your goals well, now is the right time to seek job-matching opportunities in your area of interest and expertise. Research different companies, industries, and job marketplaces for opportunities that match your interests and skill set.

Consider the following aspects:

• Which industries are growing?

• What are the qualifications needed for the jobs you are targeting?

You can also set up informational interviews with people who are already in the industry. These will build your network and give you an excellent overview of possible career opportunities.

Career mapping is a powerful tool for proactively managing your career and maximising your professional potential. By taking the time to assess your skills, set goals, and create a strategic roadmap, you can navigate your career with confidence and purpose. Start your career mapping journey today and empower yourself to achieve your dreams.