The Career Development Process

"Career" versus "Job"

A "career" is all of the productive and creative activity a person does throughout life (whether paid or unpaid). In this sense, life, work, and the person become a seamless, integrated whole. Too often career is thought of only as one's "job", a money-making activity done in isolation from the rest of one's life. When this happens, people tend to leave part of themselves at home while they are at work. They become a cog in the machine. Only that piece of self is allowed to be present that is necessary for the task. I have a difficult time splitting myself like this. I prefer to be fully present in every aspect of my life; whether family, spiritual, work, or leisure.

Career Development

Career Development is a lifelong process of self-realization and self-actualization. It is lifelong because we are limited, but ever growing, in our knowledge of ourselves and of the world of work. It is a process because we never "arrive". Career Development takes continual attention and intentional effort to find our "place" in the world of work and to reach for our full potential and become a real asset to our community.

Career Development Process

One depiction of the career development process is below. This shows the process of change and growth that we must continually work at throughout our lives. As we grow in our view of ourselves the process readjusts to this new knowledge. As we develop new skills, we readjust. As we learn more about what our possibilities are, we must readjust. As we learn more about the world of work, we must readjust.

Another depiction of the Career Development Process for youth as well as adults is the following:

Expanding our world.

Opportunity awareness. Often we are raised with such a narrow scope of experience that, when asked what we want to be in five years, we are left staring at our own little world, wondering. We must take every opportunity to learn and experience new options--new "worlds" outside of our experience.

Exploring our possibilities.

As we become more aware of opportunities, we must spend time exploring those opportunities we are interested in. Career exploration can be done by talking to people in career fields we are interested, touring a company, job shadowing, and internships. Another great way to explore our own abilities and interests is through volunteering in our community.

Narrowing our options.

Through explanding our worlds, we find things to explore. Through exploring possibilities, we find what we are interested in, and equally important, what we are not interested in. Through this process we begin to narrow the options we intend to pursue. Once we have decided on priority areas to pursue, we set goals and take step toward those goals.

For more on the Career Planning Process, check out the following:

Career Planning Process The Career Planning/Competency Model encourages individuals to explore and gather information which enables them to synthesize, gain competencies, make decisions, set goals and take action. Each individual varies in their progress through each of these stages for many reasons. Some advance rapidly through each or all of the stages while others progress more slowly. Individuals may repeat all or parts of the career development process at various points throughout their lives as values, interests, abilities, and life circumstances change.

http://www.washburn.k12.il.us/neff/careers/CareerPlanningWorksheet.htm

http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/sa/career/students/planning_process.html

 

Capacities clamor to be used

and cease their clamor

only when

they are well used.

~Abraham Maslow

To be what we are

and to become

what we are capable

of becoming,

is the only end of life

~Robert Louis Stevenson