The Top Advantages of Creating a Career Roadmap

A now-famous Harvard study showed that MBA students who wrote down their goals and made a plan for how to achieve them (three percent of students) made about ten times more money after ten years than the students who didn’t write down their goals and make a plan (97 percent of students). Imagine something so simple having such a huge impact? It speaks to the vital importance of career mapping.

Career Roadmaps for Success

Creating a career roadmap is a necessary step toward success because it incorporates long term and short term goal-setting to plan how to achieve satisfaction in your career. This is the primary goal of creating a career roadmap, but there are other advantages to doing so. 

Until you really think about and write down your plan, you might not even know what your ultimate career goal is. Sure, it may be in the back of your mind, but sometimes it will just stay there until you put it down on paper and make it real. A huge part of the success of those who create career roadmaps is the thinking and decision process they go through to figure out exactly what they want. 

Getting Others to Buy-In

If you are like most people, asking other people for help is a scary thing that might feel uncomfortable for you. If you don’t really have to ask, you will avoid it whenever possible. Career roadmaps break down the steps of career advancement into smaller pieces, and some of those small pieces will be best developed with help from others.

It could be mentoring, making introductions to colleagues and connections, or teaching a valuable skill—whatever you need someone’s help with, you will be able to see that need better with a career roadmap. Furthermore, once you have a roadmap, you can just follow it like a set of instructions. It will be easier to ask for help when it’s a step on your career to-do list, and you can see how doing so will contribute to your professional trajectory. 

In general, a career roadmap is a strong motivator to take the steps you need to take in order to progress in your career. Without a written plan, it’s easy to get lost in the process, forgetting which step is next and being generally more haphazard about the way you go about career development. A written plan keeps you organized and motivated so you can focus on each step as it comes up. 

If you let the right people know about your career roadmap, they may be able to both hold you accountable for following it and take actions to support your plan. A supervisor who knows you are interested in moving up to a higher position will be more likely to recommend you for those opportunities when they arise, for instance, than one who isn’t sure what your goals are or if you even want to advance. 

GDH offers a number of professional services and helps job seekers find their next great position to advance their careers and take the next step along their career roadmap. Browse jobs to see what positions we are looking to fill right now.