Career development is the process of building knowledge, experience, and skills that will help an employee reach long-term career goals. Career development is different from employee development, which is more focused simply on gaining skills and experience, often in areas that will benefit the employer. Career development, on the other hand, is guided by the employee's vision of their future career.

Assessing Your Current Career Situation

In order to develop in your career, you need to have a good understanding of where you are now. This assessment should be a thoughtful process in which you evaluate your personal interests and values, identify your strengths and weaknesses, and review your current skills and experience.

Setting Career Goals

The next step is setting goals for where you want your career to go. Building on your career assessment, you'll identify objectives that align with your personal and professional ambitions. Both long- and short-term goals are crucial; long-term goals guide the big picture, while shorter-term goals help you take the steps you need to take to arrive at your ideal future.

Your career development goals should be unique to you and realistic—but also involving some stretching and growth. Setting goals is an important first step, but you'll need an action plan to achieve them. Your plan should be realistic and detailed, while allowing you to adapt and change course along the way as needed.

Balancing Work and Personal Life

Your personal happiness and satisfaction are important elements of career development goals, so you need to think about how to balance your work and personal life in a way that feels right to you. It's easy to focus so much on the end results that you forget to take care of your needs.

Career development is a marathon, not a sprint, and you won't be able to finish the race if you find yourself sidelined because of burnout. If you want to reach your long-term goals AND arrive there happy and healthy, it's crucial to add self-care to the equation. Protect and prioritize your own well-being by identifying what self-care means to you and establishing well-defined work-life boundaries.

Evaluating and Adjusting Career Development Strategies

Career development is a journey. While you may envision that journey as a straight line when you make your plan, every career has its twists and turns. You're allowed to change your short- and long-term objectives along the way, and there will be times when you have to adapt to circumstances beyond your control.

This awareness comes from regularly evaluating your progress and achievements. Take a good look at what you've achieved (or not) and what you've learned from that experience. This can help you identify areas where you can improve, which will become new short-term career development goals. This assessment can also inform the adjustments you need to make in your long-term career development plan.

Conclusion

Career development is key to getting where you want to go in your career—and to find personal satisfaction and accomplishment. Effective career development starts with deliberate planning, and while it should be your plan, it's not a solo effort. Along the way, people in your professional life—managers, colleagues, mentors, and more—will be instrumental in helping you realize your career dreams.

For organizations, mentoring is a proven and effective practice to help employees succeed on their career development journeys. Learn more about how Innoconnect mentoring can help you offer this support while maximizing mentoring's benefits to the organization.