Career Development : Career Development Counsellers & Job Listings

Career Development

Career development is defined from two perspectives; the individual and the company. For the individual, career development is the process by which he or she forwards his or her career by making the right job or industry choices, as well as progressing upwards in his or her selected career. In the company's point of view, career development means the structuring of job and career progress of its employees, such that they are able to do succession planning.

There is an argument as to who is more responsible for career development, if it's the employee or it's the organization. With the employee as fully responsible for his or her career development, it means that employees should accept jobs with their own career development in mind, regardless of company. This way, when something better comes along, the employee should grab it if it suits the plans he or she made for his or her career development.

Should the company be responsible for career development, then it should carefully path the career track of each person in it. At the same time, positions should have some sort of planned progression. This way, a typical human resources department would think twice before adding a position within the company, same with hiring more employees. Being solely responsible for the career development of all its members, they are responsible for so much.

The nice middle ground in career development is where the company and the individual share responsibility. Career development, any way you look at it, is an individual undertaking. The person is the sole beneficiary of everything that comes with good career development and planning. The person experiences work fulfillment and probably some financial successes.

On the other hand, the company would want some responsibility in career development because a well planned internal career development can help them keep good employees. It is natural for people or employees to want more eventually. Moving forward with their career development plans is a way to feel this progress. But then again, if these are good employees, you'd want to keep them while making them feel like they've progressed within your organization. By carefully planning job progresses within, they can encourage employees to stay and try to move upward in the organization, instead.

All in all, responsibility is shared. The manager should be able to align the needs of the company to the goals of the employee. He or she should be able to help them in their career development and planning. The Human Resources Department is also responsible to plotting employee development and their possible career paths. At the same time, the individual should know what he or she wants and communicate this to people who can help.