Long-term career planning: goals and strategies for experienced professionals
"Successful consultants never stop growing entrepreneurially and personally. The consultant's personality and values are just as important for their career as their specialist knowledge and methodology."
The development and career planning at Complion is based on this thesis. How does personal career planning work at and with Complion? This article provides an overview of the career stages and what it takes to achieve them through personal development.
The personality and expertise of our colleagues come first. We can only be successful if we achieve maximum benefit for our clients. This requires recognizing the existing needs of our clients, which can only be achieved by observing the markets, recognizing trends and constantly evolving.
Complion supports employees through coaching and individual mentoring with KPI measurement in order to increase consulting efficiency and thus the added value for our clients. Personal success and further development are reflected in our career levels.
There are basically three career levels at Complion: Consultant, Manager and Director.
The career levels are our central instrument for evaluating and classifying employees within Complion, measured against the criteria: Qualifications and experience, professionalism and personal goals. These are supported by our ongoing operational performance assessment process (management by objectives) and continuously reviewed as part of the mentoring process. This enables the mentor to discuss suitable further development measures with the mentee. As part of mentoring, you receive feedback from the team and project in addition to your self-assessment. This external assessment helps you to validate your own position and often provides new insights and ideas.
A career at Complion is not one-sided and predetermined, but takes into account the personal level of development and one's own objectives (self-image) and relates these to the company guidelines and objectives as well as the performance achieved, as assessed by the mentor. (external image)
External image:
From a compliance perspective, three market-oriented areas are defined in addition to the quantitative targets, which are promoted and challenged depending on the employee's strengths. Our client and project business in the first place (CLIENTS & MARKETS) naturally requires quality and continuity in the provision of services, which can only be used to our advantage through our acquired, tried-and-tested knowledge and innovation (KNOWLEDGE & INNOVATION). Expert knowledge and knowledge transfer are essential for us. This is essential for Complion both in terms of employee development and qualification as well as employee recruitment (People & Development).
Self-image:
Every career plan starts with an assessment of your own strengths and weaknesses, as well as the interests and passions you are passionate about. The first step is to answer these questions for yourself. There are many possible applications at Complion, so there is no right or wrong answer. However, it is the necessary basis for suitable further development measures. You should take enough time for this step and write everything down. Only then should short and long-term goals be set.
There is no prescribed career path at Complion. Depending on your interests and key performance areas, this can look very different for everyone within the above-mentioned career stages. It is just as possible to specialize in a particular field as it is, for example, to take on management tasks. As part of the planning described above, it is important to take the appropriate direction in each case so that areas of work and further training measures can be selected sensibly. If the development potential of the current career level has been exhausted, you can agree goals and measures with your mentor in order to aim for a change of career level. There is no prescribed time period for this at Complion. The procedure and duration depend on your own individual possibilities.
Nothing is as constant as change. Employees continue to develop just as Complion does. New knowledge is also gained through new project assignments. It therefore makes sense to repeat the self-assessment regularly. Deviations or changes can be discussed not only in the annual meetings, but also in meetings during the year. Of course, the stringent pursuit of the original plan is more likely to be successful. However, changes in career planning will not have a negative impact on your personal career at Complion. Rather, the attitude at Complion is: Together for success.
Career changers are very welcome at Complion. For example, even without a degree in computer science, you can easily adapt many skills such as project or change management from your previous specialization. The career planning path remains basically the same. Together with the mentor, you develop a plan to develop relevant areas of knowledge and to shape the transfer of knowledge from the previous field.
With increasing professional experience and involvement in Complion's corporate development, there is also the opportunity to participate in the company. If you are interested, you can contact your mentor so that the corresponding program can be started. Once you have successfully completed the program, you can play an active role in shaping the company.
If this approach to employee development has convinced you, we look forward to receiving your application at karriere@complion.de.
Author: Christoph Busche