By Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 15, 1997; Page F07

There was a time when five-year plans were all the rage. Government workers had them. Private sector employees stood by them. Stalin coerced them. And (Stalin aside) they worked well, in most cases at least.

YOUR CAREER: THINKING AHEAD Career specialist Christine Bennett offers these tips for thinking long-term about your career. Formulate a plan ranging from three to five years. Revise it every six months. Share your plan with your supervisor once a month. Within that plan, think of yourself as an economic entity (Me, Inc.). Construct a portfolio of your achievements and market yourself. Include your personal goals along with your career goals. Include financial planning; do not rely on employers' plans to manage your money.

But that was when workers could count on signing up with a company for life. Now, with the gold watch standard of employment all but dead, five-year career plans also have been given the boot.

"Certainly a five-year plan is unrealistic for most people," said Christine Bennett, author of "Me, Myself, and I, Inc.," a guide to managing careers in the 21st century.

So how are we supposed to map out our careers when the topography is always changing?

"A plan is useless," Bennett said, "but planning is essential."

It may be a matter of semantics, but Bennett suggests a five-year vision instead of a five-year plan. That way workers can chart a course they'd like to follow: For instance, today I am on the team; in two years, I'd like to be managing the team; and in five years I'd like to be coordinating a bunch of teams. Just keep in mind that such a course will almost surely change.

The other standard of the new work order is that these plans or visions should be personal. Workers need not confine their career projections within the framework of their current corporation as they did in the past; rather they should understand that while it's beneficial to set a goal of being a project coordinator in five years, you might have to leap from company to company to do it.

So that's what we did. We jumped from business to business and asked a number of experts what type of career plans they would recommend to their employees. The one universal response we received was that no matter how long a plan you create, you must revisit and amend it at least every six months.

Best Traits for High Tech

In the warp-speed world of technology, five years is an eternity, five-year plan an oxymoron. Consider that five years ago the Internet was primarily the domain of Defense Department employees and a handful of back-room geeks, and it's easy to see why predicting where you'll be or what you'll be working on in the technology field at any point in the future is next to impossible. But that doesn't mean workers shouldn't plan.

"Individuals can identify employment-related characteristics regardless of other factors," said Douglas Koelemay, who is in charge of work force issues for the Northern Virginia Technology Council. The key to planning, says Koelemay, is for workers to shore up their own skills and let the rest take care of itself.

To that end, he pinpointed several personality traits that tech workers should mold:

Leadership and management skills: Even subordinates are leaders in the high-tech arena, so they better be able to carry the ball if it's handed to them.

Love of learning: The industry wants workers who are willing and able to learn. It matters less what you know today and more what you are able to deduce tomorrow.

Teamwork: Tech work is often teamwork, therefore an ability to get along with others is essential. A general sense of curiosity and comfort with ambiguity also are recommended, Koelemay said.

"You can always learn a new [computer] language," Koelemay said. "But companies are looking for well-rounded people who can contribute."

Endeavors for Engineers

The same is true at Mobil Corp., where we spoke to the Fairfax-based company's employment experts about what type of career plans mechanical, civil and other types of engineers should chart. At the beginning of careers they endorse a four- to five-year model, but after that period, they said, employees should be flexible and stick to six-month or one-year plans.

"For the first four to five years, your plan will be broken into two major periods," said Jeffrey Lawrence, a recruiting coordinator, speaking about workers in the 22- to 28-year-old range. "The first two years will be learning key technical training and after that engineers will be placed in the field for a couple years."

Lawrence recommends that employees take advantage of all opportunities to try out different aspects of engineering during this time. While the career plan may stick to the general guidelines of two years behind a desk and a couple years on site, employees can and should try everything. The reason, said Lawrence, is that after this incubation period, workers need to be flexible and able to jump around within the company.

Because of this need for flexibility, workers should formulate short-term plans and consult with their supervisors and career counselors every few months to go over a new set of goals and revise their plan.

"There's no set plan for anyone," Lawrence said. "You have to map out what you want to do and look at how you can advance to the next level on a regular, yearly basis."

Creative Choices

The situation can be even more tenuous in a creative field such as architecture. In these types of industries workers have many choices about which direction to take and are more apt to create plans around their own goals. For example, some architects choose to tackle gigantic government building projects that can last for 10 years, while others prefer to churn out home designs every few months. Either choice can be a pathway to promotion, says Dale Stewart, a principal of Core, a 26-member firm in Georgetown.

There are a couple of different types of career plans to pursue at Core, according to Stewart. To make the jump from architect, the most basic, licensed position, to senior architect, in which workers have managing power, employees should figure on a six- to eight-year timetable. But that doesn't necessarily mean they should have an equally long career plan.

Architects on multiyear projects may start out by designing doors. But they need to take on more responsibility along the way so that they're not still doing doors after a year or two, he said. Their plans should be incremental and somewhat aggressive; creative people are expected to do, rather than wait to be told what to do.

But even the most creative businesses are businesses at heart. So a career plan for an architect, designer or decorator should include delving into the business side of projects. So Stewart advocates balancing these two aspects and dividing time accordingly.

The trick for workers in these creative fields is that they can loosely stick to long-term plans but there is little direction from superiors on how to proceed within that span. Thus, they must first decide what specific path they wish to take and then ambitiously proceed down that road scooping up opportunities when they appear.

And generally that is the case for all workers. Today's marketplace is changing at warp speed and successful workers will have to adjust with it. Long-term plans can be useful as guides, but they become folly if they're followed rigidly. Set your goals. Map out a plan. Create a vision. Then six months later, be ready to rethink those goals.

Have a question about how to get ahead? E-mail Steven Ginsberg at ginsbergs@washpost.com