Career management

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Career management is the combination of structured planning and the active management choice of one's own professional career. Career Management is an umbrella term that covers Career Planning & Career Development on an individual level or at an organizational level. Career management also covers talent management, as part of a talent retention strategy. Career management was first defined in a social work doctoral thesis by Mary Valentich as the implementation of a career strategy through the application of career tactics in relation to chosen career orientation (Valentich & Gripton, 1978). Career orientation referred to the overall design or pattern of one's career, shaped by particular goals and interests and identifiable by particular positions that embody these goals and interests. Career strategy pertains to the individual's general approach to the realization of career goals, and to the specificity of the goals themselves. Two general strategy approaches are adaptive and planned. Career tactics are actions to maintain oneself in a satisfactory employment situation. Tactics may be more or less assertive, with assertiveness in the work situation referring to actions taken to advance one's career interests or to exercise one's legitimate rights while respecting the rights of others.

Valentich and Gripton defined success as managing one's career effectively through the attainment of desired positions and other rewards. The outcome of successful career management should include personal fulfillment, work–life balance, goal achievement, and financial security.

A career includes all types of employment ranging from semi-skilled through to skilled, and semi-professional to professional. Careers have often been restricted to an employment commitment to a single trade skill, profession or business firm for the entire working life of a person. In recent years, however, a career now includes changes or modifications in employment during the foreseeable future.

The following classification system with minor variations is widely used:

1. Development of overall goals and objectives,
2. Development of a strategy (a general means to accomplish the selected goals/objectives),
3. Development of the specific means (policies, rules, procedures and activities) to implement the strategy, and
4. Systematic evaluation of the progress toward the achievement of the selected goals/objectives to modify the strategy, if necessary.