Five phases. One Individual Career Plan. Yours.
Modern Career Planning™ takes you from self-discovery to a fully personalized career strategy. Each phase builds on the one before it. Each phase has at least one purpose-built tool that produces a real output. By the time you complete all five phases, you will have an Individual Career Plan (ICP) — a single document that captures everything.
PHASE 1
Discover your superpowers. Own your brand.
Most career development starts with your job search. MCP starts with you. Phase 1 maps the four dimensions of your professional identity: Personality , Values, Strengths, and Interests & Passions. Together, these form your Identity & Brand Profile — the foundation for every decision that follows.
Tools: Identity & Brand Profile | Informational Interview Guide
PHASE 2
Choose your direction with confidence — not guesswork.
Phase 2 begins by expanding your options before narrowing them. Using your identity profile as a filter, you evaluate career pathways against your values, interests, and target skills. Then you set a specific, measurable career goal — not “I want to be a manager someday,” but a real target with a real timeline.
Tools: Career Interest Profiler | Pathway Evaluation Matrix
PHASE 3
Build your Career Advisory Board.
Law #1 of MCP is to be selfish. Your Career Advisory Board is the most practical expression of that law. Phase 3 teaches you to identify, recruit, and activate the right advisors — people who are already doing what you want to do, in the roles and industries you are targeting, and understand your struggles and challenges.
Tools: Career Advisory Board Blueprint | Skills-to-Advisor Mapping Canvas
PHASE 4
Close your gaps with intelligence, not guesswork.
Phase 4 turns your skill gaps into a structured development plan. This system helps identify the critical requirements that you need in order to grow and qualify for your career goal(s). You build a Career Capability Map — a visual inventory of key skills and experiences you need and recommendations to close the gap.
Tool: Career Capability Map (CCM)
PHASE 5
Execute your strategy. Make the right move at the right time.
Phase 5 is where strategy meets execution. Your Career Navigation Dashboard tracks your progress across all dimensions: skills development, advisory board activity, pathway milestones, and ICP updates. It keeps you moving — and helps you recognize when it’s time to make your next move.
Tool: Career Navigation Dashboard
The output of all five phases: your Individual Career Plan.
The ICP is not a resume. It is not a LinkedIn profile. It is a living document that captures your identity, your goal, your advisory board, and your development roadmap in a single reference. You update it as you grow. It becomes the most valuable career asset you own.
This looks like a lot of work. Good!
One of the first things people say about Modern Career Planning™ is that it seems like a lot. They’re right. So is a decade of reactive career moves. Here is why MCP is worth the investment:
MCP is employee-driven. No one manages your career for you — and no one should. A manager with no career development training cannot build a meaningful plan for you in a 1-hour annual review. MCP gives you the tools to drive your own trajectory.
Careers take years — sometimes decades — to build. The investment you make in your career strategy today compounds over time. The professionals who thrive do not plan reactively. They plan regularly, the way you would your finances or your health.
MCP works inside organizations. The framework has been integrated successfully with corporate mentoring, leadership development, and L&D programs.
Career planning is not something you do when things go wrong. It is something you do so they don’t.