What is Career Development?
Career Development is the lifelong process of managing life, learning and work. It embraces experiences gained through all your life roles, not just paid work. It is about knowing yourself, understanding the options available to you, making choices and actively working towards your own personally determined and evolving future.
Career Development is often sought during transitions such as study to work, return to work after redundancy, travel, migration, illness, injury, parenting, caregiving, preparation for retirement. Career Development can also occur in the workplace.
CDANZ Career Professionals meet CDANZ Competency Framework and continually developing their own practice to take into account changes in the labour market, technology, international best practice and more.
CDANZ members work in diverse areas including education, vocational rehabilitation and supported employment, youth and community development, business and organisational development, and more.
Some of the services offered by a career professional are:
- For all - Career Counseling, CV Preparation, Job Search Coaching, Interview Coaching
- For those thrust into change – Transition Coaching, Outplacement, Retirement Planning
- For those in the workforce - Workplace Career Development, Organisational Development
- For students - Student and Graduate Guidance
- Career Development and Health - Vocational support for People with Disabilities, Supported Employment, Career Development and Mental Wellbeing
- Programme development, Career Research and Policy
Why does Career Development matter?
Decent work and economic growth is Goal 8 in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. They are human rights that not only represent financial wellbeing, but are critical to the holistic wellbeing of individuals, families and communities. Governments around the world are being proactive in ensuring their people have sufficient income to live through Covid-19, however financial strain is only one factor at play. Work, whether paid or voluntary, is central to our sense of identity and purpose in the world.
How do we know Career Development works?
We have the evidence to prove it. Our colleagues at the Career Development Association of Australia have produced this user friendly summary of many, many international research findings that all agree: Career Development Works!
How can we help you?
Individuals: Career development is more than making a choice. A career professional will work with you to develop a strategy to support you move forward with confidence. Career professionals are skilled in counselling and coaching to help you make sense of your current situation, and consider how you might best use your strengths, interests and priorities to inform a course of action that is right for you. Career professionals have a sound knowledge of the labour market, requirements for effective job application and strategies to find and retain meaningful work.
Employers: Career professionals are educators, facilitators and coaches who help their clients to take action and make informed choices with optimistic and positive mindsets. Career professionals are enablers who work to obtain successful outcomes in relation to recruitment, retention or moving on with support. Careers are part of people's identity and therefore need nurturing to create or recreate themselves. Invest in your staff, the wellbeing of your workforce and the productivity of your business - seek the services of a CDANZ Professional Member.
Government: As we move through Covid-19 restrictions people will be left in need of new ways of working and generating income. They will also be left with significant questions around their own value, skill base, and fit in the world of work. Only the minority of those people will have the financial resources to seek professional support. For others, access to professional career development support will only be possible via their employers or government funded agencies. Access to career development is an issue of social justice.