Career planning is a deliberate process through which someone becomes aware of personal skills, interests, knowledge, motivations and other characteristics; acquires information about opportunities and choices ; identifies career –related goals; and establishes action plans to attain specific goals.– Gary Dessler
Career planning is the process by which one selects career goals and the path to those goals.– William B. Werther and Keith Davis (1996:311).
Career Development
Career Development is the lifelong series of activities that contributes to a person’s career exploration.– Gary Dessler.
Career development focuses on assisting individuals to identify their major career goals and to determine what they need to do to achieve these goals.– David A. DeCenzo
Career development involves with tracking career paths.– David A. DeCenzo and Robbins.
Career development consists of the personal improvements one undertakes to achieve a personal career plan. – William B. Werther and Keith Davis (1996:311).
Therefore, career planning and development should be seen as a process that aligns the interests and skills of employees with the needs of the organization (Stone:2008: 391). It is a mechanism to assist employees to develop realistic career goals and to provide opportunities to realize them.
Career planning and development is a double loop effort –one is made by the individual employee and the other is done by the human resource management of the organization. The following diagram exhibits this concept clearly.