7.2: Career Development as a Lifelong Process

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Entire books have been written, and graduate-level courses are taught about theories of career development. Most of the recently-published theories indicate that career development is a life-long, nonlinear process. Many students think the process starts with at least a little bit of career research, progresses to a singular career decision and then continues with education, employment and perhaps professional development in that single career field. The traditional idea is that we pick a career and work in that career for the rest of our professional lives. Unfortunately, that view is incorrect, and in fact, we need to be open and flexible plus plan to continue career development and decision-making throughout our lives.

Most of the widely-accepted career development theories indicate that career development is a circular, or at least non-linear, process that lasts throughout our entire lives. We often learn about careers from important adults in our lives during our childhood. As we go through our primary and secondary education, we learn about additional careers from our educational experiences, and we ourselves may start working in part-time jobs and/or volunteer in our communities.

If we continue on for post-secondary education, we learn more about careers from our instructors and perhaps required internships or other experiential learning activities. Some may enter the military and learn about careers in our armed forces. Others may move into full-time employment rather than post-secondary education. On all of those paths, we are exposed to events and opportunities. How we react to those events and opportunities plays a large part in our career development process. We learn about the work world and ourselves in all of our experiences, and that learning influences career choices. If you’d like to explore specific career development theories, please see the references and recommendations for further reading at the end of this chapter.