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Career Development

Chapter · April 2012

DOI: 10.1002/9781118364741.ch16

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CAREER DEVELOPMENT

Judy Y. Sun and Greg G. Wang

Understanding career development logically starts with the concept of career.

Career can be defined from both subjective and objective perspectives. From the objective

perspective, career is a lifelong sequence of job or role-related experiences. It may be measured

by tangible outcomes such as positions, salaries, and … Objective careers represent the way

individual experience in the sequence of jobs and activities that constitute one’s work history.

Subjective careers refer to the changing aspirations, satisfactions, self-conceptions, and other

attitudes of the person toward her work and life. It is often reflected by personal achievement,

self-satisfaction, and … Combining the two perspectives, career is defined as the individually

perceived sequence of attitudes and behaviors associated with work-related experiences and

activities over the span of an individual’s life.

Career development can be seen from individual and organizational perspective. From

individual perspective, career development is a lifelong process involving psychological,

sociological, educational, economic, and physical factors, as well as chance factors that influence

career of the individual. From organizational perspective, it is a process of assuring an alignment

of individual career planning and organization career management processes to achieve an

optimal match between individual and organizational needs.

The Importance of Career Development

Career development is important to organizations for retaining and developing human

resources to achieve organizational goals. It is also important to individuals because careers

represent their entire life in the work settings. For most people, work is a primary factor in

determining the overall quality of life. Work provides a setting for satisfying practically the
entire array of human needs – physiological, safety, socializing, ego, self-actualization,

achievement, affiliation, to name a few. Therefore, developing career is one of the main tasks

through which a person may improve the total quality of his/her life.

The Process of Career Development

Career development is supported and sponsored by individuals and organizations. From

Individuals’ point of view, career development is an ongoing process of planning and action

toward personal work and life goals. Through a constant and conscious career development

process, an individual may understand, explore, and make a commitment toward various aspects

of his/her career. The process often involves a number of behavioral actions including giving and

receiving of information, experiencing of feelings, working through various decisions, and

making choices among alternatives. On the other hand, organizations create and implement

career development interventions to assist their employees in improving their skills, knowledge,

and expertise for meeting their present and future human resource needs. This process requires

developing career ladders or paths, over which employees move within the organization. It is an

organized and planned effort comprised of structures, activities, or processes which result in a

“mutual plotting” effort between employees and organization.

How Career Development is implemented

Career Development programs can be conducted throughout an individuals life stages by

career counselors, counseling psychologist, teachers, placement specialists, and mentors or

managers. In organizational setting, career development often includes skill training,

performance feedback, coaching or mentoring, and continuing education. The diverse activities

range from helping elementary school children explore career interests, assisting adolescents in

making initial career choices, to performance related competency development and career
planning to address individuals’ career concerns such as developmental, career staging, and

person-job matching issues as well as organizational needs in talent shortage or succession

planning.

Career Development Interventions

A career development intervention is a deliberate action aimed at enhancing some aspects

of a person’s career, including influencing the career decision-making process, clarifying career

goals, and skill building activities. Major interventions may include:

Career Guidance or Career Planning It is a broad activity encompassing many strategies, and

has been used traditionally as a rubric under which all career development interventions were

initiated.

Career Education: A systematic attempt to influence career development of participants through

various types of educational strategies, including providing occupational information, infusing

career-related concepts into the academic curriculum, offering training devoted to the study of

career interests or choices.

Career Counseling: a service provided to a single client or group of clients who come seeking

assistance with career choice or career adjustment issues.

Career Coaching: it is a term used in business and industry to signify managers’ efforts in

facilitating career development of employees. Career coaching efforts are directed at helping

employees identify opportunities that exist within their work settings and to prepare them for

these careers.

Contemporary Career Development

Instead of hierarchical careers in the same organization, a new form of career concept

emerged during the past two decades. Protean career is a career orientation that shifts away from
organizational career. It is named after the flexible Greek sea god Proteus. Under the new career

orientation, individuals are responsible for their career development, instead of the organization.

Protean career is often associated with boundaryless career. It reflects the fact that career

movements across organization boundaries have become a norm and acceptable to many in

current changing global economies. Therefore, career development becomes self-directed,

autonomous, and driven by individuals’ needs instead of organizations’. The protean career has

the following characteristics: The career is managed by individuals, not organizations; it is a

lifelong series of experiences, skills, learning, transitions, and identity changes. Thus, career

development is characterized by continuous learning, self-directedness, relationships, and is

embedded in work challenges.

Criticism on Career Development

Career development is criticized around several issues. One is that career development

has no universal agreement to date. There are many different definitions based on different

assumptions. This brings confusions particularly to career development practitioners. A second

issue is that in the turbulent and rapidly changing socioeconomic environment, career mobility

and protean careers are currently manifest in the increase of contingent employment, career

development interventions seem losing its power especially in organizational settings. It is

unclear how an organization and its employees can adapt in a satisfying and productive way to

the new career contract. A third issue is whether the new concepts of protean and bountaryless

career can truly represent the future of careers as organizations are still dominating unit of

business operations.

Related Topics

See:
 • HR Strategic Planning

• Succession Planning

• Job Analysis

Selected References

For more information, see:

• Arthur, M. B., Khapova, S. N., & Wilderom, C. P. (2005). Career success in a

boundaryless career world. Journal of Organization Behavior, 26, 177-202.

• Hall, D. T. (2002). Careers in and out of organizations. CA: Sage Publications,

• Hansen, L. S. (1997). Integrative life planning: Critical tasks for career

development and changing life patterns. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

• Bolyard, C. W. (1981). Career development: Who is responsible in the

organization? In D. H. Montross & C. J. Shinkman (Eds.) Career development in

the 1980s: Theory and practice. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas.

• Sampson, J. P., Jr., Lenz, J. G., Reardon, r. C., & Peterson, g. W. (1999).

Cognitive information processing approach to employment problem solving and

decision making. Career Development Quarterly, 48(1), 3-18.

See Related Web Links

http://www.careerkey.org

http://www.ncda.org

http://associationdatabase.com/aws/NCDA/pt/sp/resources#list_resources_all-R102-

NCDA

http://kivunim.huji.ac.il/cddq
 Contributor Information

Judy Y. Sun is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Resource Development and
Technology, College of Business and Technology, University of Texas at Tyler. She has worked
for and consulted with multinational corporations such as Motorola and KPMG. She also served
as the Director of Career Development at a major business school in China. Her research
interests include career development, executive development, and organizational learning.

Greg G. Wang, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Human Resource Development and
Technology at The University of Texas at Tyler. He also serves as Editor of Journal of Chinese
Human Resource Management. He has worked for and consulted with multinational companies
such as GE, IBM, and Motorola. His research interests include HRD policy, career development,
comparative HRD, international HRD, and economics of HRD.

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