Career development

From CEOpedia | Management online

Career development means professional development, i.e. broadening qualifications and skills necessary to perform tasks on the current position. Career development is a way of professional development that a person intends to go through in his or her professional life. Understanding this concept is always very subjective because people have different views on the concept of career - because each person adopts different goals to achieve in their professional life. It is also taking care of the development of additional competencies that can positively influence the path of promotion. If an employee wants to change his job to a reputable company with a large number of candidates, he must also show a willingness to develop. Career development should be planned and thought out. In the case of some courses or studies, you need time to complete them and pass possible exams. Therefore, when planning your career, it is worthwhile to find out how much time can be taken up by individual stages. In order to plan your career, you need to choose a specific goal or goals you want to achieve in your professional life. The benefits of individual career planning are as follows:

  • the planning person has a sense of being the creator of his or her own destiny;
  • consciously chooses his/her own career path;
  • finds his/her strengths and analyses his/her own abilities;
  • concretizes clarifies his/her own goals, which become more achievable afterward;
  • is mobilized for further development;
  • is satisfied with what he/she is doing;
  • this increases job satisfaction.

Career development is, therefore, a long-term process of improving skills, acquiring knowledge, expanding professional interests. All this influences the appearance of the CV, which as the career develops, will become more and more interesting and rich in new elements (S. Mulhall 2014,pp.12-15).

Career development and working life

A professional career in most cases depends only on the willingness to develop, train, acquire new information and knowledge. Without training, the employee will not be attractive for the employer and certainly can not count on promotion and increase. Therefore, career development depends to a large extent on professional development. Professional development may be blocked by low self-esteem and fear of criticism (R. Kapur 2018, 45-46 ). Meanwhile, it is necessary to be willing to take up new, ambitious challenges, to prove oneself in new situations and to acquire new competences. Therefore, it is necessary to get out of the sphere of comfort and openness to new professional experience (S. Gyansah 2018, pp. 273-276).

The key element of such openness is the willingness to undertake professional development in the form of additional training, internships, internships or lifelong learning. Employees thinking about their own career development must invest in themselves, and should treat their professional experience, skills and qualifications as personal capital (B.J Dik. 2014,pp. 558-560).

Continuous training

An essential element of career development is lifelong learning, i.e. the process of continuous renewal, development and improvement of an individual's general and professional qualifications throughout his or her life (B.J Dik. 2014,pp. 558-560). It is the adult part of lifelong learning (LLL), understood as all cognitive activities undertaken throughout life with a view to improving knowledge, skills or qualifications (for personal, social or professional reasons). Lifelong learning is a complex of educational processes, formal, informal and informal, which, regardless of content, level and methods, enable supplementing education in school and out-of-school forms, thanks to which adults develop their abilities, enrich knowledge, improve their professional qualifications or acquire a new profession, change their attitudes. Lifelong learning encompasses all education and training activities towards adults. Lifelong learning is a process that aims to develop personalities as comprehensively as possible, to shape specific talents, interests and overall mental fitness. It is a characteristic phenomenon of modern education, stimulating a change in the direction of thinking about educational systems. The concept of lifelong education, as a process of making planned changes in the whole personality of a person, is an organic component of the entire educational system, which, apart from the traditional "school ladder", includes institutions implementing various forms of dissemination and modernization of knowledge, raising qualifications, professional development in the mature life of a person(A. Yakushko, O. Sokolova, 2010. pp.310-312).

Forms of continuous professional development

Currently, there are many forms of improving one's competences on the market. However, everything depends on the industry in which the employee wants to develop. First of all, you can sign up for post-graduate studies, which usually educate in the extramural mode. Courses and trainings on new technologies are important in the IT industry. In the case of some professions, the forms of professional development are strictly defined by law. Here, professional development is connected with obtaining further professional degrees: from a teacher trainee to a certified teacher . Doctors, dentists and nurses are another profession in which expanding one's knowledge is a necessity. In all health care professions (also in the case of medical rescuers) there is an obligation to retrain.

Support from the employer motivates the employee who wants to develop his or her career. On the other hand, employers depend on obtaining additional skills and knowledge by their subordinates, therefore in some companies there are prepared career paths for employees, which determine what kind of training a given employee should undergo. Sometimes the employer also agrees to cover part of the costs if he sees a willingness to develop. It all depends on whether the employer knows how to manage talents. A superior who encourages to attend courses, trainings, studies, and additionally helps to realize them, knows well that investment in employees is also an investment in the company's development. The forms of employee development depend on the industry, but the most important thing is to define specific career development goals for each employee. They may take the following forms:

  • activities in lifelong learning centres, universities of third age, etc.
  • They can take the following forms: courses in lifelong learning centres, third age universities, etc.,
  • postgraduate studies,
  • study tours, conferences, seminars,
  • watching or listening to educational programmes,
  • reading educational magazines,
  • Internet-based learning (distance learning).

Vocational development can be a matter for an individual (raising their qualifications on their own initiative and at their own expense), or it can be designed, organised and financed by the employer. In this case, the lifelong learning of employees is part of the learning of the organisation (D. L. Blustein, 2006, p. 78-80).

Employee development direction

The direction of career development depends on the expectations and predisposition of the employee and his/her professional interests. It is also influenced by the issue of job satisfaction and the level of earnings. Additional challenges can be very stimulating, so the decision about the direction of career development should be made in accordance with your own feelings and expectations (A. M. Sargent 2008, pp.23-41).


Career development — recommended articles
Employability skills — Job design — Internal training — Merit pay — Internal transfers — Coaching and mentoring — Career pathing — Managing diversity — Knowledge management system

References

Author: Barbara Lech

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