Career Development: Definition, How to Improve It, and the Benefits
Entering the world of work, many of you may be familiar with the term career development. Some employees tend to improve their career development by pursuing promotions. Others are concerned to develop their skills in the career they are in. Indeed, the term career development is useful for giving employees a clearer picture of their future careers, but what is the definition of career development exactly? How to improve it? and what are the benefits?
If you still have no idea about this term, don’t worry because in this article, we will give you an insight into career development.
The Definition of Career Development
The Balance Careers define career development as the process of choosing a career, improving your skills, and progressing along a career path. In other words, career development is the process of self-awareness, self-discovery, and decision-making that shapes your career which necessitates navigating career options in order to select and train for jobs that match your personality, skills, and interests.
Training is a common form of career development, and many companies offer internal training packages to their employees. Of course, training here represents an organized, disciplined method of transmitting the knowledge and skills necessary for successful performance in a job, occupation, or profession. It is a continuous, adaptive learning process.
Some companies even make it mandatory for their employees to participate in internal training on a regular basis but this is usually only applied to multinational corporations.
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How to maximize your career development
There are some ways that you can do to prepare yourself to have a better career with qualified self-quality. Here are some steps to maximize career development:
Self-reflect
Set aside some time to think about who you are, where you’ve been, and what you want to get out of your career. Are you satisfied with your current path? Are you working in the right field and the right position? Knowing this is the first step toward laying out a strategy for getting there.
Upgrade your skills
Don’t forget to take advantage of the company’s learning opportunities if you want to maximize your career development. Most companies allocate funds to employee training regularly. You may have received numerous invitations to attend training or office training.
By participating in the training, employees will gain new insights into their field. They can also explore it further and apply it in their daily work lives. Take advantage of the opportunity to improve your skills or learn new ones to broaden your knowledge.
Start building your network
To get the job you want, you’ll need to expand your network. If you want to advance your career, it’s just as important to keep and nurture your network. Attend some events, send brief notes to some of your key contacts, and reach out to people in similar positions at other companies to get their take on industry trends.
Make a list of things needed to get the desired position
Observing the position you want is one way that you can do for career development. Find someone who works in your dream career position and make a list of the requirements for the position.
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Benefits of Career Development
Career development is an important part of the lifecycle because it helps people switch from education and training to employment and fulfilling work life.
Here are some benefits that employees can get from maximizing career development:
- Explore their career potential by engaging in self-awareness activities and researching a variety of career options.
- Understand how they make decisions and how those decisions affect their long-term goals.
- Develop their career management skills in order to be well prepared to face the challenges of a changing world.
And here are some benefits that a company can get from giving a clear career development to their employee:
- It lowers employee turnover by providing more opportunities for advancement.
- It boosts employee motivation and morale.
- It enables organizations to fill internal promotion vacancies, lowering the cost of managerial recruitment.
- It ensures that employees’ skills are better utilized and that they are more satisfied at work.
- It enables employees to adapt to the organization’s changing needs.
- It reduces labor disputes over promotional issues, giving the company the opportunity to maintain a harmonious work environment.
Conclusion
In summary, career development is the process by which an individual’s occupational status changes. It is the process of making long-term learning decisions in order to align personal needs for physical or psychological fulfillment with opportunities for career advancement.
There are some ways that you can do to maximize your career, such as doing a self-reflect, upgrading your skills, building a network, and making a list of things needed to get the desired position.
By doing these, you will get a lot of advantages in your career.
