UNDERSTANDING CAREER DEVELOPMENT

Gutteridge defines career development as the “outcomes of actions on career plans as

viewed from both individual and organizational perspectives”. 
Career development is the process of choosing a career, improving your skills, and
advancing along a career path. It's a lifelong process of learning and decision-making that
brings you closer to your ideal job, skillset, and lifestyle.
Career development is the process of self-knowledge, exploration, and decision-
making that shapes your career. It requires successfully navigating your occupational options
to choose and train for jobs that suit your personality, skills, and interests. It represents the
link between an individuals’ drive and motivation and the organizations’ talent management
strategy.
The professional growth and development can be realized by: continuing education,
participation in professional organizations, research, improve job performance, increased
duties and responsibilities, approaches to professional development, job assignments, skill
based training etc.
This stage is a lifelong process, during which a person takes on different roles and
deals with dynamic changes and transitions. Life means career, and people frame and reframe
their self-structure, and exercise their independent enactment in constructing their life career
path. Thus, career development is about the interaction between the person and his
environment.
For beginning, we should analyze the career, referring to its five stages that most
people will go through during their adult years, regardless of the type of work they do. These
stages are exploration, establishment, mid-career, late career and decline. The first stage
depends on the careers of the parents, their aspirations for their children and their financial
sources. This stage ends for most of us in our mid-twenties when we make the transition from
college to work. The establishment is the stage that includes our first job, marked by making
mistakes and learning from these mistakes. It is a time that begins with uncertainties, anxieties
and risks. At the point of mid-career stage, we can meet the transition from apprenticeship to
worker-status. Those who make a successful transition assume greater responsibilities and get
rewards. For others, it may be a time for reassessment, job changes, adjustment of priorities or
the pursuit of alternative lifestyles.
For those who continue to grow through the mid- career stage, the late career represent
a period of relaxing. During the late career, individuals are no longer learning, they teach
others on the basis of the knowledge they have gained. The final stage is difficult for everyone
because, after several decades of continuous achievements and high level of performance, the
time has come for retirement.
I think every university must support students engaging in diverse career
development-related activities to help them discover potential career paths that capitalize on
their unique passions, talents, and interests.   Career development should be an exciting
journey for each student. The university community should consider the student’s career
development journey as a progression composed of experiences both inside and outside of the
classroom, which enable them to decide who they are, who they want to be, and what careers
might best suits their personal needs.
Following the career development process, we discover four steps: self-assessment
(This involves the individual identifying his values, interests, skills, and personality),
exploration (it involves conducting research, such as using career library resources, to
discover potential careers of interest), reality testing (it provides an opportunity for everyone
to job shadow, find an internship, or volunteer; during this step, the individual should start
understanding how his preferences and skills relate to certain career paths, work environments
and begins making realistic decisions on next potential steps in his career journeys.) and
implementation (it is the last step in the process. This can include preparation for a job
interview or completing applications to graduate school. This process involves practicing
interviewing, networking, revising resumes, and writing cover letters).
Slavenski and Buckner (1988) have divided career development process into three
distinct phases: staffing and orientation, evaluation and development.
Nowadays, the world of work has changed. A high school diploma alone no longer
guarantees a decent living wage. The youth need to develop their skills to be employed. The
process by which youth get to know their strengths and interests, learn how different jobs
connect with those interests, and build these career planning and management skills is called
career development.
Career planning and management involves developing employability and decision-
making skills and increasing the youth’s capacity to navigate within the world of work, not
just in the short term but also throughout their lives. Career planning and management
activities support students by helping them acquire job search skills, build career readiness
skill and develop traits, work habits and behaviors that allow them to be effective in the work
place, and to continually seek new work opportunities.
Activities for helping youth develop career planning and management skills can be
organized into five areas: 1. Job search skills, 2. Youth development and leadership, 3. Soft
skills, 4. Work-based learning and 5. Financial Literacy.
The most important objectives of the career development are: fostering better
communication in organization, assisting with career decisions, better use of employee skills,
setting realistic goals, enhancing the career satisfaction and, of course, feedback.
Career development programs are most effective when they are integrated with the
organization’s ongoing training and development strategies. For being able to do this, an
organization must have a carefully designed career development system especially designed
to meet its own unique needs and requirements. An automated and well-designed career
management system not only benefits organizations but also help employees and managers or
supervisors in establishing effective communication with each other. 
The major benefit of career development system to employees is that they get helpful
assistance and guidance with their career decisions. They get to know about their own
aspirations, objectives and desires and understand how to shape their career. A career
development system helps managers and supervisors in improving and upgrading their skills
in order to manage their own career. Even they get to where they are heading to and what
their aspirations are.
Career development is directly linked to an individual’s growth and satisfaction and
hence should be managed by the individual and not left to the employer. Career development
helps an individual grow not only professionally but also personally. Learning new skills like
leadership, time management, good governance, communication management, team
management etc. also help an employee develop and shape their career.
Career development provides the framework with skills, goals, awareness, assessment
and performance which helps an individual to move in the right direction and achieve the
goals one has in one's career. Careful career planning is always useful for individuals to
succeed professionally and also helps to boost employee motivation in the organization.
Finally, the development of an individual is driven by several strategies. Some
strategies of career development are as following:
 a) by companies (Training and development by companies can help in employees
learn new skills. Companies help in providing leadership development, management
development etc.)
b) by employees (Individuals can themselves boost their own career. This is done
through constant evaluation of their skills using techniques like continuing professional
development.).