What is a career path and why is it important?
What employers want more than anything else is high employee engagement and retention. In order to build the most productive workforce, employers need to make sure that their prospective employees will align with the organization’s goals and values. This translates to a motivated workforce of employees eager to contribute to its overall success.
So, how can you determine your own level of personal engagement?
One way to discover your own personal engagement level is through career pathing. Career pathing is the process of mapping career growth opportunities, vertical, lateral or cross-functional, that you have in a company. Career pathing is a great way to gauge your growth opportunities so you can market yourself to prospective employers as an ideal candidate.
Both career pathing and career development are essential pieces that help you develop a picture of what your career will look like. To learn more, keep reading. Let’s start by looking at the five stages of career development.
What Are the Five Stages of Career Development?
There are five main stages of career development: exploration, establishment, mid-career, late-career, and decline. The first step to effective career pathing is to understand the natural process of moving through a career.
Exploration
Exploration is the stage before employment where someone, like a college graduate, starts to assess their long term career goals. This is the time for exploring the qualities and values in an employer or a career path that is important to you.
Establishment
When you start looking for work, you are entering the establishment phase of your career development. This is still a time for trial and error, and employee development is crucial. Many job seekers will run into a skill gap issue, where the skills you have don’t quite match up with the skills that your prospective employers want. Ongoing professional and personal development is key to your continued growth and progress.
Mid-Career
Someone in their mid-career stage of development has secured a job and is either working towards reaching new heights or is comfortable staying where they are. Continued ongoing professional and personal development is key to pursuing your career and life goals. This may include training, certification programs or even going back to school.
Late-Career
The late-career stage is when an employee has been with an organization or in a defined career path for a while. They have found where they will spend the rest of their employment term. At this stage, many people with specialized knowledge and expertise may take on a consultant or mentorship role.
Decline
The decline stage is when an employee has reached the end of their employment time and will start looking to leave or retire.
What Is Career Pathing?
Career pathing is a method of career planning and career mapping. It is where you take an inventory of your skills and competencies to outline a path to move forward in an organization. It provides a course for you so you know the steps you need to take in order to secure a career that aligns with your skills, experiences, and interests.
Career pathing tasks you with looking at your future by engaging every part of career development, from exploration to decline, and deciding where you want to be and what skills you need to get there.
How Do You Create a Career Path?
Create a career path by looking at your desired career goal and then charting a course to get there with the help of an HR professional or your organization’s human resources career pathing program.
Many organizations offer these programs for succession planning, which is a way to fill key roles that are difficult to hire for. They’re also beneficial in the success and overall satisfaction of an employee’s career. Some organizations even have career pathing software available to assist you in your endeavor.
Why Are Career Paths Important?
Career paths are important because it allows you to look at the big picture. When you’re focusing only on your day-to-day tasks, it can be difficult for you to see the steps you need to take in the long run to get to where you want to be.
But when you can step back and see a road map to your success, you are more focused, motivated, and engaged in your work. These are all things employers love.
Use Career Pathing for Your Success
Approach prospective employers with confidence and show them that you’ll be an engaged and focused part of their team by outlining a clear career path that includes the potential employer. This will bring clarity to your role and fit with the company but will also help you recognize opportunities that will guide your progress since you know what the ultimate goal looks like.
If you need assistance creating a career path, sign up for a consultation with me today.