In organizational development (or OD), the study of career development looks at:
how individuals manage their careers within and between organizations and,
how organizations structure the career progress of their members, it can also be tied into
succession planning within some organizations.
In personal development, career development is:
" ... the total constellation of psychological, sociological, educational, physical,
economic, and chance factors that combine to influence the nature and significance of
work in the total lifespan of any given individual." [1]
"... the lifelong psychological and behavioral processes as well as contextual influences
shaping one’s career over the life span. As such, career development involves the
person’s creation of a career pattern, decision-making style, integration of life roles,
values expression, and life-role self concepts."
Career development is an organized planning method used to match the needs of a
business with the career goals of employees. Formulating a career development plan can
help employees to do their jobs more efficiently. Additionally, these plans can be
beneficial for employees who might want to move up in a company or look for other jobs
in the future.
In the business world, there are generally two groups that direct the career development
process: upper management and human resource personnel. Managers, for example,
might have the responsibility of making sure the needs of a business coincide with the
employee's career goals to achieve an overall balanced work atmosphere. They will often
identify the skills, experience, and knowledge employees need in order to provide their
best possible work.
Human resource (HR) personnel are often responsible for providing career development
information programs for employees. Professional networking is usually important, and
as a result, employees might get tools to start networking from the HR department. HR
managers also usually provide a compensation structure that compliments business needs
but also allows individual career growth. For example, employees who have exhibited a
certain improvement or growth in needed skills might be promoted and given a raise.
Regardless of company leadership, employees have the primary responsibility to make
sure their career development goals proceed how they want them to. Typically,
employees assess what they want from their job currently, as well as in the future.
Employees often work with their supervisors to figure out what training, professional
development, or continued education options are available to them.
Sometimes, career development is explored by people who are not employees of a
business. Instead, these people might be interested in creating a set of guidelines to help
them to choose a career and get hired by a desired company. This typically involves a
self-assessment in which a person usually considers things that he or she is naturally good
at or has experience in. Additional things to consider include interests and learning styles.
The self-assessment generally helps an individual to select careers they are the most
interested in pursuing.
What is career development?
Career development is an organized approach used to match employee goals with the business
needs of the agency in support of workforce development initiatives. In this process:
The purpose of career development is to:
Enhance each employee's current job performance.
Enable individuals to take advantage of future job opportunities.
Fulfill agencies' goals for a dynamic and effective workforce.
Who's Responsible For It?
Managers are responsible for linking the organization's needs to employee career goals,
and can assist employees in the career planning process.
Human Resources is responsible for designing career paths and employee development
programs that help employees reach their goals.
Each employee is responsible for planning and managing his/her career.
Career Development Definition
Career Development Definition: Career development involves managing your career either
within or between organizations. It also includes learning new skills, and making improvements
to help you in your career. Career development is an ongoing, lifelong process to help you learn
and achieve more in your career.
Whether you are looking at making a career change, or moving up within a company, planning
your own career development will help you succeed.
By creating a personal career development plan, you can set goals and objectives for your own
personal career growth.
Don't make the mistake of leaving your career development future in the hands of your
employer, hoping that you will get the next promotion or pay raise. This misconception can lead
to job dissatisfaction and resentment.
You may have already experienced this...
You work for so long for a company, hoping that your hard work and efforts will be rewarded.
After a while, you're burned out, and you become disappointed and jaded, not understanding why
you can't seem to get ahead. While many employers do have career development programs in
place, there is no guarantee that your dream position will be open when you're ready, or that all
your efforts will finally be rewarded.
Just realizing that you need to take control of your own career future is the first step to career
growth and job satisfaction.
Career development represents the entire sequence of activities and events related to an individual's
career. Career development encompasses acquiring of educational qualifications and certifications,
career path, self-actualization as an individual, shifting of careers and career growth, learning curve,
family life, accomplishments and recognitions or felicitations.
Goals
1. Setting goals and milestones based around well-defined objectives is integral to any
career development plan. In today's fast-moving and constantly shifting business and
external environment, goal setting tends to be more medium term.
Individual Involvement
2. Career development is generally decided, shaped and managed by an individual rather
than the immediate superior, Human Resources (HR) department or organization-defined
influence that it was generation or two ago.
Flexibility
3. A career development plan needs to flexible enough to account for crisis situations, mid-
career blues, relocation possibilities, career shifts and other exigencies.
Staying Competitive
4. Career development calls for innate professionalism, sharp-edged focus, a keen learning
temperament, intent to gain new skills and certifications as desired.
Family Role
5. Family commitments, growing needs of a young family and health-related issues of
elderly parents are some aspects that are part of the stages of career development that
influence career shifts, relocation plans and other changes.
Overview of Career
Development Model
All Career Center programs are based on the premise that career development is a lifelong,
cyclical process. No matter where our students and alumni find themselves in the cycle, the
Career Center is prepared to assist them.
The following phases provide organization to our approach:
Phase I - Assessing Self & Preferences
understanding self, skills, interests & values
Phase II - Exploring Options
proactively identifying, understanding and matching self to the possibilities
Phase III - Developing Skills & Experience
building skills, knowledge & reputation
Phase IV - Marketing Self
obtaining the skills to seek, obtain, maintain and change jobs
Phase V - Performing & Planning Next Steps
developing the skills to make effective career-related decisions and career transitions
Career Development Process
Making a successful plan for your future is a continual process through which you will cycle
many times. Regardless of class year, you may jump in at whatever point is relevant to you. You
may be working on two stages at once.
The pathway to good decision making and successful life management typically involves the
following four stages:
1. Self-Assessment
Identify your interests, skills, values, and personality style.
2. Implementing Goals
Take action through effective job search and/or education strategies.
3. Exploring Options
Learn about different career and education options.
4. Narrowing Options
Connect your knowledge about yourself and the world of work to formulate career goals.
CAREER DEVELOPMENT THEORY
Career development theories help make sense of experiences. A theory is, in effect, a
rationalized set of assumptions or hypotheses that allows you to explain the past and
predict the future. As such, theories may provide "direction"; and as theories are tested
and prove "true", they may be said to expand knowledge. There are two types of
career development theories: structural and developmental
Two types of theories
1. Structural Theories:
Focus on individual characteristics and occupational tasks.
2. Developmental Theories:
Focus on human development across life span.
STRUCTURAL THEORIES
Trait and Factor
This theory began with Parsons, who proposed that a choice of a vocation depended
upon:
An accurate knowledge of yourself.
Thorough knowledge of job specifications, and
The ability to make a proper match between the two.
He wrote:
"In the wise choice of a vocation there are three broad factors:
1. A clear understanding of yourself, your aptitudes, abilities, interests, ambitions,
resources, and limitations;
2. a thorough knowledge of the requirements and conditions of success,
advantages and disadvantages, compensation, opportunities, and prospects in
different lines of work; and
3. True reasoning on the relations of these two groups of acts"
--- (Parsons, 1909/1989, p.5).
Two major assumptions of trait and factor theory are:
(1) that individuals and job traits can be matched, and
(2) that close matches are positively correlated with job success and satisfaction.
These ideas are still part of our career counseling approach today.
John Holland -- Vocational Personalities and Environments
This typology theory was developed to organize the voluminous data about people in
different jobs and the data about different work environments, to suggest how people
make career choices and to explain how job satisfaction and vocational achievement
occur.
Holland suggested that "people can function and develop best and find job satisfaction
in work environments that are compatible with their personalities"; (ICDM, 1991, p.
4-4). Holland based his theory of personality types on several assumptions. People
tend to choose a career that is reflective of their of their personality. Because people
tend to be attracted to certain jobs, the environment then reflects this personality.
He classified these personality types and work environments into six types which he
labeled realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional (often
referred to by the acronym RIASEC). He suggests that the closer the match of
personality to job, the greater the satisfaction.
All types are part of each of us. However, one type is usually evidenced most
strongly. We may even resemble up to three of the types. Holland developed a
hexagon model that illustrates some key concepts: consistency, differentiation,
identity, and congruence.
A very brief overview of the six personality types, six work-related activities, and
sample occupations is presented below:
TYPE ACTIVITIES OCCUPATIONS
Realistic Working with things, i.e. tools and machines Farmer, Carpenter,
Mechanical Engineer
Investigative Working with information, i.e. abstract ideas and Chemist
theories
Artistic Creating things Painter, Writer
Social Helping people Social Worker, Counselor
Enterprising Leading others Sales Representative,
Entrepreneur
Conventional Organizing data Night Auditor
"Holland's theory places emphasis on the accuracy of self-knowledge and career
information necessary for career decision making".
--- (Zunker, 1994, p.49).
Although the theory appears to be applicable to both male and female workers, there
is some question of gender bias in that most females frequently tend to score
predominately in three personality types: artistic, social, and conventional. Holland
suggests that in our sexist society, females will display a greater interest in female-
dominated occupations.
Socioeconomic Theory
Sociologists and economists provide detailed explanations and descriptions of how
one's culture, family background, social and economic conditions and other factors
outside an individual's control strongly influence one's identity, values, and overall
human and career development. Socioeconomic theory is also known as the "chance"
or "accident" theory. This approach to understanding career development suggest that
many people follow the path of least resistance in their career development by simply
falling into whatever work opportunities happen to come their way.
--- Improved Career Decision Making (ICDM) in a Changing World,, NOICC,
Garrett Park Press, 1996, p.4-4 - 4-6)
DEVELOPMENTAL THEORIES
Super's Theory
Donald Super (1957) and other theorists of career development recognize the changes
that people go through as they mature. Career patterns are determined by
socioeconomic factors, mental and physical abilities, personal characteristics and the
opportunities to which persons are exposed. People seek career satisfaction through
work roles in which they can express themselves and implement and develop their
self-concepts. Career maturity, a main concept in Super's theory, is manifested in the
successful accomplishment of age and stage developmental tasks across the life span.
Self-concept is an underlying factor in Super's model: "...vocational self-concept
develops through physical and mental growth, observations of work, identification
with working adults, general environment, and general experiences....As experiences
become broader in relation to awareness of world of work, the more sophisticated
vocational self-concept is formed"
--- (Zunker, 1994, p.30).
Super's contribution was the formalization of stages and developmental tasks over the
life span:
STAGE AGE CHARACTERISTICS
Growth Birth to 14 or 15 Form self-concept, develop capacity, attitudes, interests,
and needs, and form a general understanding of the world
of work.
Exploratory 15-24 "Try out" through classes, work experience, hobbies.
Collect relevant information. Tentative choice and related
skill development.
Establishment 25-44 Entry skill building and stabilization through work
experience.
Maintenance 45-64 Continual adjustment process to improve position.
Decline 65+ Reduced output, prepare for retirement.
People change with time and experience, and progress through the following
vocational development stages:
VOCATIONAL AGES GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS/DEVELOPMENTAL
TASKS
Crystallization 14-18 Developing and planning a tentative vocational goal.
Specification 18-21 Firming the vocational goal.
Implementation 21-24 Training for and obtaining employment.
Stabilization 24-35 Working and confirming career choice.
Consolidation 35+ Advancement in career.
Although Super originally presented the stages and tasks in a sequential manner,
he later added that we cycle and recycle throughout our life span as we adapt to
changes in ourselves as well as to the trends in the work place. Understanding
these ages and related stages of career development helps the facilitator select
appropriate responses and activities.
Super and Thompson (1979) identified six factors in vocational maturity:
1. Awareness of the need to plan ahead
2. Decision-making skills
3. Knowledge and use of information resources
4. General career information
5. General world of work information, and
6. Detailed information about occupations of preference.
Super also looked at the different roles we play during our lifetimes and the relative
importance we give to those roles at different times in our lives.
Krumboltz's Social Learning Theory
Much growth takes place as a result of learning and imitating the behavior of others.
Krumboltz developed a theory of career decision making and development based on
our social learning, or environmental conditions and events, genetic influences and
learning experiences. People choose their careers based on what they have learned.
Certain behaviors are modeled, rewarded and reinforced.
Decision-Making Theories
Some decision-making theories hypothesize that there are critical points in our lives
when choices are made that greatly influence our career development. These decision
making points are such events as educational choices, entry-level job positions,
changing jobs, etc. Other decision-making theories concerned with ongoing choices
across the life span. The decisions that we make are influenced by our awareness of
the choices that are available to us and our knowledge of how to evaluate them.
Others address our complex environment. For example, H.B. Gelatt says, "We make
our decisions based upon what is actual and what is actual is never static"
--- (Gelatt, 1991, p. 1).
Cognitive Theories
Cognitive theories of career development are built around how individuals process,
integrate and react to information. The ways in which individuals process information
are determined by their cognitive structures. These structures influence how
individuals see themselves, others and the environment. Cognitive theories suggest
ways to help clients build or refine a hierarchy of thinking skills and decision making
skills that influence career development.
View Career Development Cycle
The career development cycle model was developed to help students better understand the
process of career development. Throughout your college experience you should touch upon each
part of this cycle. Over time you will find yourself building your resume, and your confidence in
a particular career direction.
Begin to explore our career services and educational opportunities that match your need by
clicking on each section of the career development cycle.
Experience
Getting experience can involve anything from taking a class that interests you to joining a club or
organization on or off campus. Experiencing something will allow you to distinguish between
your likes and dislikes. Further, this will help you discover where your strengths and/or
weaknesses lie.
Reflection
Reflection is a great way to understand your experiences more fully. Whether using a career log ,
journal writing, or talking with a career counselor this practice can help you organize your
thoughts and create career goals.
Career Concept
The career you think you want to pursue after graduation. For example, “after reflecting on my
last two internships, I think I really want to be a pediatrician”.
Information Gathering
Doing occupational research through our online resources, meeting with alumni through
the Zebra Career Advising Network (ZebraCAN) to talk about their career experiences, reading
books from our Career Library or observing others doing the job you think you would like to do
someday.
Development Activities
Development Activities can be work assignments, projects, training and other activities that help you
develop the skills you require to be successful for the next step in your career path. The following
examples of Development Activities have been provided to assist you in your own career development
planning. Choose one or two that are appropriate for your situation and feel free to add your own
development activities to the list. Incorporate these into your Career Development Plan and work
towards achieving your goals.
