Career Development

Career development(CD) refers to progression in one's career through a sequence of jobs, involving continually more advanced or diverse activities and resulting in wider or improved skills, greater responsibility and prestige, and higher income. Formerly, career development was seen as the responsibility of the employer, and many organizations had formal career development programs that marked an employee's advancement through the levels of management. It is now more usually held to be the responsibility of the employee, sometimes as part of the CD process. Career development involves managing one's career either within or between organizations. It also includes learning new skills, and making improvements to help one in one's career. Career development is an ongoing, lifelong process to help one learn and achieve more in one's career.

Whether an individual is looking at making a career change, or moving up within a company, planning his own career development will help him succeed. Career development is seen as the process of managing life, learning and work over the lifespan. It encompasses the provision of services (in many different jurisdictions and delivery settings) to assist people to gain the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behavior that help them to manage their career more effectively. The need for career development services is founded in evidence that the development of an individual's career provides a foundation for that person's feeling of self worth. Career development services and programs for young people will help them to make immediate career and learning choices and also lay the foundations for life-long learning and life-long career development.

By creating a personal career development plan, one can set goals and objectives for one's own personal career growth. Career development (CD) is now the primary responsibility of individuals in organizations. Just as the responsibility for employee retirement planning is no longer a corporate function, the responsibility for learning and for the development of career paths has been downloaded to the individual employees.