What is Professional Development?

Earning your degree and landing that first position in your career field of choice might seem like an exciting finish line to what’s been many years of academic preparation and training.

But in reality, it marks just the beginning of a career journey that will extend throughout most of your life. And during that journey, you may find opportunities to expand your knowledge and grow your skills even further by engaging in professional development activities, events and initiatives.

“If we expect to grow in our careers, we must be intentional about focusing on what knowledge and skills are necessary for where we want to grow and purposely finding opportunities to grow in those areas,” said Dr. Phil Nazzaro, vice president of talent development at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU). “The world is far too dynamic to sit on a single set of skills and believe they will be sufficient for performing in a role.”

What is the Meaning of Professional Development?

Professional development can take many forms and unfold in a variety of settings. At its core, it refers to building new professional knowledge, skills and mindsets with the goal of growing your capabilities and career, said Nazzaro, who has over 20 years of experience in talent management, learning and leadership, and organizational development.

For many, enrolling in degree programs as a way to supplement their previously earned degrees and/or real-world experience offers an effective way to balance industry knowledge and skills development and, ultimately, advance their careers.

You’ll find professional development opportunities in virtually every career field and discipline, and while it typically involves learning activities where technical knowledge and skills within your field are developed and strengthened, it isn’t limited to that, Nazzaro noted.

“These might include topics from using Excel or the steps in executing a specific process needed to complete a job,” Nazzaro said. “Professional development addresses much more than this, including leadership development and human skill development, which we used to call soft skills.”

According to Kerri Kellan, associate vice president of talent development at SNHU, while traditional forums — such as formalized classes, workshops and conferences — continue to provide valuable outcomes, professional development isn’t limited to those types of settings.

“As someone who has spent a career in developing and delivering professional development experiences, I would say that is certainly one option and is valuable, but a majority of one’s professional development happens much more frequently in our day-to-day work,” said Kellan, who has over two decades of experience leading organizational learning, leadership and culture initiatives in for-profit and nonprofit organizations.

Examples of this, Kellan said, can include:

• Engaging in a new professional community, activities and events
• Expanding your professional network to include others from varied backgrounds and fields
• Participating in a new project that’s not directly related to your area of expertise
• Taking on a new role in addition to your current areas of responsibility

What Goes Into Effective Professional Development?

Kellan and Nazzaro agreed that while professional development can happen in many different ways and across a wide range of settings, there are some common attributes that you can look for to ensure you’re getting the most impactful experience possible.

“To me, professional development has to be personalized and shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all approach,” Kellan said. “Professional development is personal because each of us have built skills that are in our toolbox that can be expanded upon, and we all have new skills that we may wish to learn that will help propel us closer to our personal or professional career goals.”

Additionally, Nazzaro said a key to effective professional development is developing, strengthening and evolving the kinds of skills and mindsets that advances in technology can’t accomplish.

He said this includes strengthening your skills in areas like effective listening and working as part of a team.

“In a world where collaboration is a critical aspect of business success and technology, such as AI, integrates into our ways of working, it will be these human skills that become the key differentiators in successful businesses, even more than they already do today,” Nazzaro said.

What is the 5-Step Professional Development Plan?

Creating a traditional 5-step professional development plan can serve as a powerful tool in advancing your career.

The specifics of a 5-step professional development plan can vary from person to person and situation to situation. According to Nazzaro, they are essentially bridging strategies to assess where you currently are in your career, where you want to be in the future and what you will need to do to bridge the knowledge and skills gap to get there.

“Traditional 5-step professional development plans remain valuable to individuals in today’s workforce for sure,” he said.

Kellan agreed, identifying the following example of a 5-step plan:

1. Identify and confirm your career or professional development goals.
2. Think about what skills or experiences will be needed to meet your professional development goals.
3. Assess your skills against your professional development goals and then be open to gathering feedback from others on your strengths and opportunities in relation to those skills.
4. Reflect on the feedback and personal assessment data in step #3 and draft a list of your strengths and skill gaps based on the data.
5. Devise a professional development plan to address the skills you need to build or expand upon to meet your professional development goals with key milestones to obtain them.

She said with any 5-step plan, it’s important to have the right mindset and realistic expectations from the very beginning.

“Be okay with failure,” Kellan said. “Oftentimes when we learn something new, we don’t get it right the first time or maybe even the second or third time, but what you are learning in the process can be a rich learning experience in itself.”

Read more: What Are SMART Goals?

What Are the Main Benefits of Professional Development?

Well-planned professional development activities can deliver benefits on several fronts throughout your career, Kellan noted.

In today’s dynamic and constantly changing world, she said the skills we learned a year or two ago may not be the skills we need for tomorrow, making professional development an important way to stay on top of our work.

“The world in which we live is evolving rapidly, and to stay relevant in an ever-changing world, building your professional development plan will be important to become greater aligned with the demands of the evolving landscape,” Kellan said.

According to Kellan, in addition to providing the knowledge and skills training to continue growing in your current position, professional development can also open new doors of professional opportunity and empower you to climb the professional ladder.

“When we place a priority on personal learning, it can be an instrumental tool in helping us realize our career aspirations,” Kellan said. “This provides individuals and organizations the ultimate competitive advantage.”

The benefits of professional development aren’t limited to the workplace either, Nazzaro added. It can be a good way to expand not just your professional network, but also your social network by meeting new people with shared interests.

And, he said, many people experience fulfillment that extends beyond career and professional growth.

“We can certainly point to multiple studies that demonstrate that when people feel that they are growing they are more satisfied in their jobs,” Nazzaro said. “But I’d expand that to say, when people are growing and learning, they are more satisfied in life. Curiosity is built into the human condition, and the opportunity to grow satiates that innate need we all have.”

Cary Jordan is an Iowa-based writer with more than 20 years of writing and editing experience on a wide range of issues related to higher education. Cary has held administrative and cabinet-level positions at multiple colleges and universities, and his writing has spanned topics related to undergraduate education as well as graduate education in the areas of business, law, medicine and engineering, among others.