Work through these sections in order. Write in complete sentences, not just keywords — the clarity you're looking for comes from the writing, not just the thinking.

SECTION 1: Where I Am Right Now • Current role and company type: • Years of total experience: • My strongest 3 skills (be specific — 'Excel' not 'analytical'): • Skills I know I'm missing: • My current professional network strength (honest 1–10): • How my LinkedIn profile currently reads to someone who doesn't know me: • My current salary and whether it reflects my market value:

SECTION 2: Where I Want to Go (12–24 months) • Target role title: • Target company type or industry: • Target salary range: • Why this target — what about it genuinely appeals to me: • Someone I know who has this role (if any):

SECTION 3: The Gap • Skills my target role requires that I don't have: • Credentials or certifications that appear in target job descriptions: • People I need to know (titles or companies) that I don't know yet: • How my personal brand needs to shift:

SECTION 4: My 90-Day Plan • The single most important thing I can do in the next 30 days: • Networking action for this quarter (specific: who, how): • Skills development for this quarter (specific: what, how, by when): • Brand action for this quarter (LinkedIn headline update, portfolio piece, etc.):

SECTION 5: Review Date • I will review this plan on: [date] • I will share this plan with (accountability): [name]

A few notes on getting value from this worksheet:

Don't rush Section 3. The gap analysis is the most important section and the one people spend the least time on. Resist the urge to move quickly — spend at least 20 minutes here. Look at 5–10 job descriptions for your target role and list every requirement you don't currently have. Then prioritize: which gaps would eliminate you from consideration, and which are nice-to-haves?

Set a review date before you finish. The worksheet has no value if you fill it out and never look at it again. The review date in Section 5 is what converts a one-time exercise into an ongoing tool.

Be specific in Section 4. '90-day plan' sections fail when they contain vague commitments like 'work on LinkedIn.' The 90-day plan should have dates, counts, and specific outcomes. 'Update LinkedIn headline by [date]' and 'send 2 connection requests to people in [target industry] every week' are executable. 'Work on LinkedIn' is not.

Worksheets are useful starting tools, but they have two limitations that matter:

They don't tell you what your milestones should actually be. Section 3 helps you identify gaps, but it doesn't tell you which gap is most important to close first, which certifications actually matter for your target role, or what timeline is realistic. For a software engineer moving into product management, the gap is real — but which PM courses, which skills to highlight, which companies to target first? A worksheet can't answer that. It just creates empty boxes.

They don't track progress or prompt action. Once you fill in a worksheet, it's static. It won't remind you that your 90-day review is coming up, show you your milestone completion rate, or update your priorities based on what you've accomplished.

This is the gap ClearlyPlanned fills. The career quiz generates the same structure as this worksheet — but with AI-powered specific recommendations for your situation, and a live dashboard that tracks your progress and tells you what to do next.

The goal of a career planning worksheet isn't to produce a document — it's to produce clarity and action.

A completed worksheet that sits in a folder is not a career plan. A plan is something you look at regularly, update when your situation changes, and use to make decisions about which opportunities to pursue and which to pass on.

The worksheet above is a great starting point. Use it to get clear. Then find a system that keeps that clarity alive and connected to your daily actions — whether that's a recurring calendar block for career development, a planning tool, or ClearlyPlanned's milestone-based roadmap.