key points for professional development

By Jennifer Méndez

Developing action steps

• First, we should recognize what things we would like tochange in order to improve as professionals. Then weshould stablish goals to start this change, those goals canbe for short or long term.

• After stablishing our goals, we must begin to act.

Set long term goals first

• In order to set long term goals, we have to think about our job performance, and

determine if we are really satisfied with it.

Technical knowledge

• Companies require different skills depending on the position. Also, they prefer people who are upgrading their knowledge with the new trends and needsconstantly.

Developing action-steps

• To improve our professional life, we have to stablish and organize the steps that help to achieve our goals.

Developing my action-steps

SHORT TERM LONG TERMImprove my communicative skills Become a leader

Be more organized Upgrade my knowledge

Set tasks priorities

Improve my cooperative work

Single actions:• Coolaborate every time I can.

• Interact more with my co-workers.• Make a to do list every day.

• Be proactive and give new ideas.• Take courses that can help me in my work.

• Learn from others

Make a record of your “pinnacle moments”

• We have to learn to appreciate the momentsin which we have felt proud of ourselves.

My own record

created great material

received good comments about my job

someone asked me for help

had everything on time

took good decisions by myself

worked with others and we did a great job.

solved problems

found new ways to do things

I have felt satisfied when I:

Evaluate yourself

• A self-evaluation of our strengths andweaknesses in our professional life, helpsus to know what we need to improve.

My self-evaluation

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES

Punctual Not give opinions

Problem-solving No self-confidence

Open-mind I don’t like verbal communication

Creative I don’t like telephone calls.

Good listener

Good written communication skills

Good interaction with coworkers

Good learner

Hard work

Explore context

• We need to explore our context and evaluate how it affects our goals.

Be ready for changes

• There are changes in everywhere and we must be prepared for them.

• We have to discover what is our role in our work, and how we can help to improve it.

• Each change is an opportunity!

Make a list of your skills and how to put them into practice

• It is very important to know our kills and how they can help to achieve our goals.

Skills How to put them into practice

Manage peopleI know the skills of people who work with me, so when weneed to work as a team, I know how they can help. I’mgood at work distribution.

Creativity Create useful material that everybody at work can use.

Coordinate servicesI have a list of services that I need for each activity. If it is afood service, I have a good taste!

Create advertising materialsI work on all the advertising material of my department, sowe save money by not paying to a graphic designer.

TrainingUsually I train others in my department, to use technology.

Written communication skills I send any kind of written information.

MultitaskI’m mulstitak,so it helps me to have everything on timewithout stressing myself.

VisionaryI should give ideas on how to improve our department.

TechnologyI can use technology to make tasks easier, and also teachothers how to use it.

Work in team• Cooperative work is so important because

we learn from others while helping theCompany to improve.