What is Career Development?

Career development is an organized approach used to match employee goals with the business needs of the agency in support of workforce development initiatives. In this process:

The purpose of career development is to:

• Enhance each employee's current job performance.
• Enable individuals to take advantage of future job opportunities.
• Fulfill agencies' goals for a dynamic and effective workforce.

Career Development: Self-Assessment

Self-Assessment is a process of clarifying your valuethrough discovering the relationship between various occupations and your personality type and work style, interests, career values, and skills.  Even if you have engaged in a self-assessment process early in your career, your interests may have changed over time and you may be eager to learn new skills.  It is helpful to periodically engage in a thorough process of self-assessment throughout your career.

Career Development: Career Awareness

In the Career Awareness phase of career development planning, your goal is to understand how your value applies to opportunities within your organization and the wider world of work.  Developing your career awareness means gaining knowledge of career paths and job opportunities at UC Berkeley, and the skills and qualifications necessary to be successful in these positions. 

There is a lot of information available to you on the Internet, but it is crucial to seek out information from colleagues, supervisors and managers, and other Cal employees as well.  Pay attention to what you observe, feel, and experience in your day-to-day work life at Cal. 

Ultimately, the fit of an organization’s culture with your personal goals, values, and work style is something you need to assess for yourself.

Career Development: Goal-Setting

Goal-Setting is a process of integrating self-assessment and career awareness information into career goals that reflect your vision of what you want in a career. If you have taken the time to do a thorough self-assessment and have built up your career awareness, then you are ready to focus on taking action.

Career Development: Skill Development

Skill Development means developing yourself and your skill sets to add value for the organization and for your own career development. Fostering an attitude of appreciation for lifelong learning is the key to workplace success. Continuously learning and developing one's skills requires identifying the skills needed for mobility at Cal, and then successfully seeking out trainings or on-the-job opportunities for developing those skills.

Developing your skills begins with assessing which skills are important for your desired career development. Read about career skills in the self-assessment section of this website. Speak with your supervisor or manager and other career mentors to identify the types of skills that will help move you forward in your career.

Once you have identified the skills you need to develop to achieve your career goals, your next step is identifying how you will develop your skills. The two main avenues for developing your skills are through the following:

1. Education and training
2. Developmental experiences

Career Development: Career Management

Career Management ensures others know about you and your value. Although Career Management is one of the five phases of career development planning in our model, it is deliberately front and center since activities related to career management are relevant to all the other phases. Also, career management, unlike the other phases, is a continuous process that occurs throughout one's career and not just at discrete times. It may be helpful to think of career management as a philosophy and set of habits that will enable you to achieve career goals and develop career resiliency.

Successful career management is accomplished through regular habits of building relationships, engaging in career development conversations, updating your career development plan, and setting new goals as life and career needs change. Being proficient at career management also means possessing basic skills related to job searching and managing changes in a resilient manner.