Career Management - Definition, Importance, Factors & Example
What is Career Management?
Career management is an ongoing, conscious & step-by-step process of an individual to manage their career to meet their personal goals, aspirations and ambitions. Career management is when an individual plans in advance how they want their career to shape up in future.
This includes career planning and career development as critical elements, where an individual plans short-term, medium-term and long-term career goals and develop his or her skills accordingly at every stage.
Importance of Career Management
Every individual at the start of their job or business has career aspirations. These aspirations are on the type of industry, job role, preferred area of expertise, salary, perks, stability etc. Every person who starts their career, start at the bottom of the hierarchy and gradually move up the ranks by virtue of their education, performance, skills etc. To ensure that an individual performs well in their career there is a lot of planning required.
Career management is an important aspect for the personal growth for every professional.
Career management is essential to prepare short, medium and long term goals for oneself and develop their skills, knowledge and business acumen so that they can work towards their ultimate career aspirations at all career stages.
Objectives of Career Management
Career management defines certain objectives for every individual, employee or business person. A few of them can be defined as below:
1. Growth
Every person wants to manage their career because they want personal growth for themselves. Career management helps a person define their personal growth goals and ambitions.
2. Aspirations
Career management helps people understand where they want to be in their career in 5, 10 and 20 years. Different people can have different aspirations based on what they expect from their career.
A person with certain qualifications may look for sales role in future but at the same time a person with same qualifications may look at management or consulting as future role for oneself.
3. Skill Development
If a person has certain career goals and aspirations in place, they can develop their skills and competencies accordingly.
Skills can have a very important impact on one's career path and overall management. In current market scenario, the right skills are the key to success in career. Skill development and management can help get the right skills through right training and planning leading to better opportunities in career.
4. Ambition
Having a short, medium and long term plan enables a person to evaluate the wealth one wants to have in their life. Wealth can include house, car, savings, investments etc. and how their job and career can help fulfil those goals.
Factors in Career Management
There are many factors in career management which can
1. Market Trends
An individual can use market trends in managing once career. Growing industry and current market trends can help achieve a person his or her goals and aspirations in different ways as there may be more opportunities.
2. Individual Situation
For some individuals, career path can be totally different from other people in similar roles with same qualifications. Some people may need to get experience from the job and some may see benefits like compensation and relevant skills
3. Motivation
Each individual is different in terms of self motivation. Based on the the motivation and aspiration, a person may manage one's career differently
4. Evaluation
Constant evaluation is very important. If the current career path is not going according one's ambition or plan after evaluation, changes can be done through upskilling or changing roles.
Example of Career Management
Consider a young employee who starts his or her career as a marketing executive, with an ambition to becoming the Chief Marketing Officer eventually. For short term 5 year goals, the employee must develop technical skills to become a marketing manager and execute marketing activities efficiently. For medium term 10 year goals, the employee must plan to become a leader managing a team at regional level with expertise in several marketing domains.
For long term 20 year goals, the employee must focus on developing leadership skills, plan macro level strategies and help the organization define long term business roadmaps. This is how career management can help an individual grow at every stage of their career with careful planning and skill development.
Hence, this concludes the definition of Career Management along with its overview.
This article has been researched & authored by the Business Concepts Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.
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