Enhance Your Career with the GCSAA Self Assessment Tool

This week while attending the Western Washington Professional Development Seminar I was listening to GCSAA board member Bill Maynard, CGCS, and GCSAA speak on networking your way to a big job. Bill’s presentation was excellent. He had a number of great ideas on how to build your own personal network so you can achieve your career goals. One thing that Bill mentioned that caught my ear was to be sure to log onto the GCSAA website and utilize your Self-Assessment Tool. If you are serious about enhancing your career or and looking for that opportunity to move up, this is a great way to chart your success. The Self-Assessment Tool will provide you with a way to rate your current skills and knowledge against each competency listed. Once completed, you will be able to identify seminars and resources for each competency and tailor fit your education to meet your needs. This will also enable you to chart your own course toward continuing development and eventually to certification if you so desire.

What made me write about this is the fact that the Golf  Industry Show is just around the corner. If you are a regular GIS attendee you can use the Self-Assessment Tool as a form of communication with your general manager or your boss. Upon completing the tool, you can use the gap analysis and be able to track your educational progress. Unfortunately at this time you can't print a report from the web page, but you can summarize your results and share it during your annual review. This will certainly help justify the continuing educational expense line in your budget because you can show how the education is benefiting the facility.

On the other hand, if you have lost your education expense line in your budget or simply have a manager that doesn't realize the importance of continuing education or attendance to the GIS, you can use the Self-Assessment Tool to demonstrate areas where your increased knowledge will have a direct and positive benefit to the facility. Your summary can simply be part of your goals during your review process, giving you an opportunity to explain the value of education and how it will pay dividends in the long run. In today's business world, budgets are getting tighter and more scrutinized. If you can demonstrate that the money will have a direct and positive impact on your course, you should have a much easier time adding dollars back to that education expense line. Some may not be comfortable presenting this to their manager, but if you are, taking a matter like this in your own hands could definitely put you on a track toward success.

Don't forget, as a bonus you will receive .5 education points upon the completion of your self assessment.