Professional Development Planning (PDP)
What is Professional Development Planning?
Professional development planning (PDP) is a structured process to help you reflect upon your own learning, performance and achievements. It has been designed to support you in the planning of your professional, educational and careers development. PDP will allow you to:
- understand more fully what and how you are learning
- review, plan and take more responsibility for your own development
- articulate your personal goals and evaluate progress towards achieving these goals
- become a more effective, independent, confident and self-directed learner
- improve your effectiveness as a career planner and your employability rating
- begin the process of Continuing Professional Development in your chosen career area
Professional development planning is essentially a process of:
- Thinking about where you are now, where your interests lie, what your strengths/weaknesses are and the improvements you would like to achieve.
- Planning where you want to go, what skills and knowledge you need to get there and how you will acquire them via learning opportunities open to you
- Action planning, recording the progress you make and identifying when you have achieved your goal
- Reflecting on your learning and achievements and areas for further personal, academic and career development
PDP @ ALPs
In order to support your professional development, Heriot-Watt University Careers Service has created resources which will enable you to plan and review your employability and study skills:
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The exercise involves:
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examining the employability skills that the employers have been highlighting
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identifying an example of when you have demonstrated that skill
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rating yourself on your current level of competence in utilising these skills
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identifying opportunities to further develop your competency
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ranking the use of the skills you have identified in terms of personal preference
Study skills review
This form enables you to review and plan your academic progress and study skills. It can be used at your end of term/semester review.
Recording you skills using CV Builder
This tool enables you to record your skills, present then effectively in your CV and plan further skills development
Resource Tools