Find the right competence development

What is competence development?

Competence development can be courses, but it can also be thematic days, lectures, self-study courses, on-the-job-training or similar. Competence development will allow you to gain new competences or update your knowledge within a given area.

Should I really be thinking about competence development now?

You may think: “I’ve just graduated, why should I think about competence development already”. And yes, you’re completely right. When starting your first job, it’s normal to feel that you lack specific competences – professional or personal.

Even though, you’re at the start of your career, you also need to focus on your market value. You have many years left on the labour market, so you must continuously update your competences. Within few years, your competences from your studies will not be as new or valid anymore:

• Perhaps you’ve been given new and more developing tasks
• You’ll find out that you need to improve some areas within personal development
• Perhaps you’ve become more aware of what kind of tasks you want to do in the future
• You may want to specialise within a specific area
• Or perhaps you’re dreaming about becoming a project manager or a manager.

Focusing on competence development from the very beginning of your career allows you to influence the direction for your career and shape your working life. By targeting your competences towards areas that interest you most, you open the doors for exciting opportunities and create a meaningful career path for yourself. In this way, you take control of your career. You don’t let coincidence determine your path, or what your boss wants, but you make conscious choices based on your own wishes and goals.
Particularly in the early stages of your career, it may seem difficult to find out what competences to improve – and what your competences really are. You can figure these out here: How to identify your competencies

But it doesn’t have to be this difficult. We’ve set up 4 simple steps to help you find the right competence development for you.

Find the right competence development

1. Identify your competences

Being a new graduate and facing new challenges can make you doubt your own abilities. But remember, feeling insecure at the beginning of your career is normal. Identify the areas where you need to develop, both professionally and personally.
Using a systematic approach, you can describe your competences in detail and find out what you want. This will help you become more aware of what you’re good at, and what you like doing, and you’ll become better at describing it. You’ll very likely also discover that you have more competences than you think you do.

IDA has developed a tool that we call CompetenceCoach to help you identify your competences.

2. Unrealised strengths

How do you find out how and in what direction you should improve your competences? Start by listing your tasks:

• What are you not good at and what don’t you really want to work with anyway?
• Tasks you’re good at, but you find boring
• Tasks you’re both good at and find interesting. These are your so-called unrealised strengths
• Last but not least, tasks that you currently find difficult, but which are challenging and interesting.

Focus on the last bullet. This is where you should find out whether you should improve your competences with continuing training to get more interesting and developing tasks.
If you map your tasks and look at which ones you like, you can take the next step and look at what works well or not so well about the tasks and what you find interesting about them.

Is it the task itself, the collaboration in the team or the reason for the task? This provides a good basis for the type of continuing training you should look at and for how to talk to your boss about where you want to develop and learn more.

3. Find continuing training relevant for you

Do you need to be certified? Do you want to embark on project management? Do you want to specialise even further?

Can you participate in continuing training close to your home, or do you need to travel far? What is best? Onsite courses or asynchronous online learning? Is the knowledge you need only provided abroad? And how do you know if a course provider has the right quality?

Choose the most effective methods to develop the competences you want. This may include online courses, books, podcasts, workshops, or even getting a mentor. Find methods that suit your learning style and timetable. Remember that it’s important to find balance between competence development and work to avoid overtaxing yourself.
Regardless of what competences you want to improve, continuing training can be something of a jungle.

IDA’s skilled competence development counsellors know all about the courses and continuing training market and they can help you find your next course or provider from among professional public or private providers.
Book a free competence development session.

4. Prepare well and talk to you manager

For many people, this is the most difficult step: Is my boss interested in investing in me at all? And how can I justify spending time on continuing training, when I already have this many tasks and I’m a relatively new graduate?

“Money is not the problem, but time is, we can’t afford you being away.” This is not an unlikely rejection from your boss, when courses and continuing training come up. However, you shouldn’t always take no for an answer. Think about whether you have time not to improve your competences with continuing training? And could a three-day course help you get less busy?

It is all too easy drop the ideas about continuing training, but even though it may seem easier in the short term, it may cause more challenges in the long term. Because if you don’t develop professionally, it may affect your job satisfaction as well as your job security.

Instead use a methodological approach. Prepare well before talking to your boss:

• What will you and the company gain from you participating in the course you want to follow?
• What will happen to your work while you’re on the course? Will others do it for you? Or will it go untouched? Will you return to a huge additional workload? If so, how can you solve this together?
• How can you implement what you learn on the course or continuing training?

The last bullet is more important than many people think. There must be an acceptance and understanding that you’ll also need time afterwards to implement what you’ve learned, and activities this can generate. It’s motivating for yourself as an employee – and the reason for taking the course in the first place – that you’ll use the competences you’ve achieved on the course.