Many employers feel that their career prospects are fully in the hands of their employers. Less than one in three employees knows how to develop their career over the next five years.
But that can’t be farther from the truth. It is you who should be in charge of your career management — and steer this process in the right direction.
What is Career Management?
Career management is a continuous process of planning and adapting your professional development to meet your future goals. In other words — it’s everything you do to ensure you’re progressing vertically (e.g., to higher-up positions) or horizontally (e.g., by expanding your skill set and pay grade).
The point is you’re thinking ahead about where you want to be in the next two, five, or ten years and take steps to achieve those career objectives. Here are a few quick career management examples to help you better visualize the concept:
- Finding a mentor or internal sponsor who helps you create a career roadmap and guides you on your journey.
- Completing a certification program to obtain the missing competencies for getting promoted to the new role.
- Becoming active on LinkedIn to build a strong personal brand and get booked as a prospective speaker.
Fundamentally, the career management process involves four core components:
- Self-awareness: You have a good perception of your skills, interests, and values and their impacts on your career prospects.
- Career exploration: You carve out time regularly to learn more about various job packs in your industry, opportunities for advancement, or transition to an adjacent role.
- Life-long learning: You’re eager to acquire new competencies and master new technologies to maintain a competitive skillset.
- Networking: You’re actively building relationships with other people in your industry (and beyond it) online and in person, and know how to engage with recruiters.
Combined, these actions enable you to shape the direction of your career and keep it in sync with labor market demands.
Career Planning vs Career Management: The Main Differences
Career planning is the goal-setting part of career management. This is the stage when you start thinking about bridging the gap between your future aspirations (e.g., becoming a C-suite member one day) and your current position (e.g., an executive assistant). You outline the steps that will take you there and set milestones to measure your progress.
But some skills you’ll need for advancement will take years to develop. Committing to something like completing a degree or certification can feel overwhelming. Moreover, short-term career goals can get derailed by unforeseen circumstances — a layoff, personal health issue, or economic uncertainty in your market.
Unlike career planning, career management prompts you to constantly scan the horizon. Rather than just committing to one goal, you’re adapting your vision as you go, based on the changes in the labor market or your circumstances.
In other words, career planning sets the direction, while management keeps you moving forward. Plus, career management is a more collaborative process, often involving HRs, managers, and your professional network, who facilitate your growth.
4 Reasons to Discuss Your Career Management Plan with an HR
One of the key functions of an HR department is workforce planning. They evaluate and plan workforce supply and demand, assess skill gaps, and decide on talent development initiatives to ensure the business always has access to the right people.
So they already have the ‘vision’ for how the company workforce should evolve. By broaching the subject of career management with an HR, you can gain more insights about the following.
Succession Planning
Human resource teams, in collaboration with the C-suite, are in charge of preparing promising talent to fill key positions in the future as senior workers leave the organization. They’re often in charge of identifying and preparing candidates to advance to higher positions, implement talent development plans, and otherwise help the company stay prepared for talent turnover.
Scheduling a career management conversation with an HR signals your readiness for advancement. You can also learn more about internal mobility options, job shadowing, training, and mentorship opportunities that could help you get better prepared for your next role.
Remember: two-thirds of managers end up receiving promotions without proper training and position — a fact that negatively influences their subordinates and their chances of success in a new role. By being proactive, you develop better leadership and interpersonal skills before getting the formal title, making the transition easier and you further career growth prospects — even sunnier.
Job Security
The job market is anything, but predictable these days. Since the start of 2025, tech companies have already laid off an extra 26,000 people and job cuts are rampant in other sectors. At the same time, three-quarters of companies keep facing skill shortages.
What the numbers are telling us is this: Companies face severe skills mismatches. Their existing talents lack the required competencies while hiring for these in-demand skills isn’t always easy.
HRs can help you better understand the company’s talent needs now and in the future, so that you can make more informed career decisions. For example, invest in a particular type of training or even consider a career change if your occupation is heavily affected by technological changes.
Upskilling and Reskilling
In almost every industry, job profiles have shifted a lot. A job description you saw (or signed for) five years ago is no longer the same one you’ll see today or in five years. According to LinkedIn, since 2016 25% of core competencies for jobs have evolved, and another 65% will change by 2030.
In response, many employers are upping their budgets for learning and development — and HRs are the ones in charge of assigning the training. So it always pays off to pass by the office to ask about new opportunities available or even pitch in a program you’d want to do.
Compensation Negotiation
Last but not least, you can also ask for a refresher on pay grades and other opportunities to make an extra dollar. Or even negotiate your current salary if you feel like it dipped below the market standards.
The best time to talk about compensation is either during your scheduled performance review, after delivering on a major milestone, or when you’ve been shouldering more responsibilities for the same pay for quite some time. Present a quick case, explaining why you’d like a salary review and what positive impacts you’ve made.
If an HR says a salary increase isn’t possible at the moment, you can also negotiate benefits like bonuses, stock options, flexible work arrangements, or professional tuition reimbursement. Most will try to meet you halfway.
Conclusion
To successfully advance in your career and get where you envision to be, you need to be proactive. When it comes to your future, no conversation should feel uncomfortable. If your current manager or HR team doesn’t talk to you about how you could get to the role you truly want, people at another company would.
The post What is Career Management (Why It Matters)? appeared first on Freesumes.com.