Career Development – VA Success Group

July 12, 2025 George Post in Career Development

Job Retention and Capitalisation Are Key To Lifelong Career Path

In days of yore it was quite normal to apply for a job/vocational placement and expect to stay there for an entire working career, be that long or short. These days however, the general thought amongst the younger working masses is to work for say 3 years with one company and then move on to bigger & better, having cut our teeth on the first job. There is far less brand or firm loyalty nowadays as it is perceived to be lazyy and not at all strident or outward facing if we don't branch out and look for new experiences and challenges. There appears to be little feeling that the employers would benefit from some stability in the work market - all those recruitment campaigns and advertising costs, plus the time taken to train up each replacement is astronomical. However, in some specialised areas such as medicine or law, this 'do a turn then cut & run' wouldn't be in any way helpful, the expectation is to get to the top, annd make a name for oneself! For less specialised jobs, career development is more focusing on networking, strategic career planning. There is the national goverment career service agency that can identify skills and explore career options, taking into account academic achievement and using the skill set to formulate a career path to start with. If the candidiate has some idea of what they wish to do as a career, then the possibility of planning their dvlopmeent is made that much easier. Once the first post has been achieved, working at it with clear goals and timeline will give them something concrete to aim for in each working year.

April 7, 2025 George Post in Career Development

How Does Career Progression Work

When one first joins any job, be it the start of a hopefully life long career, or maybe that stepping stone on our way to finding a true vocation, we all need to show some personal commitment and stadfastness. Just going in to the office or place of work on a daily basis and doing the minimum is never goinbg to cut it in todays very busy and cut throat world. To prove that you have what your employers are looking for, are the one out of the pack who can give their best and achieve the most, then personal development should be a contiuous process. Professional excellence should be the aim and there are various ways to help achieve this. CPD, or continuous professional development is a strategy that most major employers use to encourage the employee to give of their very best at all times. It encourages individuals to develop and keep going, the knowledge and skill set requireed to excel in that respective profession and to comply with professional standards and regulations. Someone who participates in a CPD training course will oundubtedly benefit from networking with experts and peers in their particular fields. By tackling a CPD course, professionals remain relevant and better ready to take on challenges and generally growing and evolving in that work place.

November 19, 2024 George Post in Career Development

Developing A Career & Keeping It Moving

There are thousands of careers out there or so it would seem when you leaf through the pages of the local college for training adults. There are also academies who can provide ranges of courses to suit individuals and organisations to include the full level 6 diplomas in career guidance and development, careers and leadership and a totally bespoke course in SEND. Of course, to ensure that providers can be judged amongst their peers, there has to be a register - so in fact a way of checking how good your supplier of career development is in the grand scheme of things. The most interesting aspect here is the chance to become an actual career development adviser and facilitator and particular professional qualifications are available. A full list of professional qualifications in career development is available together with a means to check progression in this sector or from allied areas. One big sector is policy, campaigns and media and there is a very active career development section as is the career in career jobs board which is the uks only recruitment site that looks absolutely entirely on the career sector and is operated by the career development institute itself.

September 26, 2024 George Post in Career Development

How To Keep Top Career Development In The System

Even in the most highly esteemed legal profession, there needs to be an element of vigorous career development. At some point in any legal beagle's career, an organised development strategy needs to be introduced. Maybe a slight change of direction or a chance to practice in a different discipline. Maybe someone needs the chance to take on greater challenges, or change in career direction, or even just earn more money. First things first, the basics include evauating where you are now and what you have achieved in your career todate. Have you achieved some or all of your original post training objectives for the first five, seven or ten years? Have you set clear objectives for the next five, seven or ten years? The next stage is to set goals and a timeframe to acvhieve them. Unless you have this clear path upwards, there is very little point in just languishing and keep hoping something else will happen. It very rarely does without a huge input from your end. Looking at a current list of criteria for recruitment purposes makes you concentrate on whether any of your goals are achievable that way. Take a barrister for example, they may after several years at the bar decide to take their career in a different direction and become a member of the judiciary - there are many steps to be taken for that to be realised and the law society handbook on career development has all the guidelines on achieving this. And many other topics.

August 30, 2024 George Post in Career Development

Considering Career Development & Skills Platform for Productive Workplace

These days companies are in a bigger fight for survival in the international sphere of dog eat dog when it comes to securing that mega deal and getting that prized client on board. Stakes are generally a great deal higher now with massively increased costs to industry for utilties, staff costs, running and maintaining a sales force and fleet of vehicles. Keeping the factory floor employees are not overlooked either. To keep the workforce happy, contented and able to focus and produce more than pre covid rates, it is very much worth looking at schemes aimed at delivering smarter workplace learning schemes. These apply intelligence on who the learner is, what they already know and more importantly, what they need to learn to be successful. A learning pool organisation for example can deal with over a 1000 customers, be located online and be able to support a choice of language skills to overcome an employee performance challenge for all cases. Often employees need prompting in compliance matters and just need an update in training and this can be achieved with adaptive real-time courses and the delivery of personalised learning can be achieved with the right platform. Helping every achieve career development should be uppermost in the employers aims - a happy and contented workforce will almost always be a far more responsive and productive workforce.

July 23, 2024 George Post in Career Development

Starting A Career Strongly Enough To Needing Development

For there to be any form of career development, there has to be a strong element of career in the first place. When a student finishes their early stage of upper school, be that in the private or state sector, by years 11 & 12 they are being badgered to start thinking about career options. The schools want their students to select the right academic or vocational courses for their final examinations and any route through to university. There are careers tutors designated to guide and encourage the choice of subjects without forcing issues. This can be very challenging when a young person has absolutely no idea what they want to do when they eventually leave the school system. This is where the career stutor can help, by asking them to really think hard about role models in their family or life; is there anyone, apart from endless celebrities, who stands out as a sterling example of a happily employed and engaged adult - what job does this person do and is that something that could be of interest to the student going forward. Knowing in advance that they might fancy becoming a nurse, midwife, engineer, sales engineer . . . . it helps to formulate an education plan which translates to getting on the right course and in the direction they need to be to get that career. Once the career is underway, then steps can be put in place to keep developing that career - via agencies and companies who are trained and operate for that purpose.