As you grow in your career, remember no one is born brilliant at their job. Every successful person has been learning and working at their skills for a long time — taking advantage of professional development opportunities over the entirety of their career.
The professional world is becoming increasingly competitive and is constantly changing, so professional development and continual learning is more important than ever in being successful and achieving career goals. Technologies and best practices are evolving and progressing in every industry, making it crucial for both new and experienced professionals to continue developing their skills and honing their knowledge.
What Are the Benefits of Professional Development?
Professional development and continual learning will provide multiple benefits to every professional who actively engages with these opportunities, but many of the benefits of professional development will depend on the professional’s specific career goals.
Benefits of professional development include:
Professional development expands your knowledge base: Professional development and continuing education opportunities can expose both young and experienced professionals to new ideas, solidify their knowledge, and increase their expertise in their field. Those who actively seek out these learning opportunities are those who will benefit most from them.
Professional development boosts confidence and credibility: By increasing professionals’ expertise through professional development, their confidence in their work will increase as well. No one likes to think they’re missing important skills in their industry. Professional development courses, continuing education, and training opportunities allow professionals to build confidence and credibility as they acquire new skill sets and professional designations.
Professional development increases earning potential and hire-ability: Professional development and continuing education offers both young and experienced professionals with opportunities to boost their earning potential and future hire-ability by increasing their knowledge and updating their skill sets. Professional credentials, certifications, and designations — most of which can be accessed and obtained online — also provide easy ways to increase a professional’s value. Professionals with the right skill sets who seek out and take advantage of upskilling opportunities are certainly more bankable than those who don’t.
Professional development can provide networking opportunities: Many professional development opportunities such as workshops, conferences, and other networking events allow professionals to branch out and meet other people within their industry who may be able to help them with career opportunities in the future. When you decide you want a change or are ready to move up in your career, your professional network and the professional relationships you forged will come in handy.
Professional development keeps professionals current on industry trends: Professional development and continuing education and learning opportunities are great ways to stay up-to-date on industry knowledge and trends. Every professional industry is constantly evolving, so employees should use professional development and training opportunities to expand their knowledge base, learn new practices and techniques, and embrace new technology.
Professional development can open the door to future career changes: For professionals who are looking to make a complete career change or to pivot within their industry, new skills acquired through professional development training could be critical to opening new doors within their field or to transition to a new industry.
How Can I Improve My Professional Development?
There is no universally “right” way to plan for career growth and career development. But to find the right professional development opportunities that are best for you, you need to start with your career goals. Once you know your goals, it is easier to seek out and take advantage of the professional development opportunities that are right for you.
While continued learning and training opportunities are always important, there are many ways you can augment your professional development and invest in your career. Ways to improve your professional development include:
- Develop a timeline with career milestones. If appropriate, take your timeline to your boss or manager during your one-on-one meetings or annual reviews and ask them to help you manage your career to reach your milestones.
- Take advantage of any and every training program and professional development opportunity your company offers and you think would be helpful to your career.
- Find a mentor you look up to and whose career growth you would like to imitate. A mentor is a great way to learn about new opportunities, and learning from someone else’s experience can give you an edge over other professionals.
- Consider a lateral move within your industry to broaden your experience. Having an understanding of and being able to perform multiple related jobs can be very helpful as you progress in your career.
We provide you a path learning to earn or maintain professional identifications, to be self-recognized, appearing and exploring informal learning opportunities situated in practice. Emigrantz provides you a course work as intensive and collaborative, ideally incorporating an evaluative stage. We offer a variety of approaches to professional development, including consultation, coaching, communities of practice, lesson study, mentoring, reflective supervision and technical assistance.
