ABSTRACT
Career advice that is given to an individual can be of various kinds. It can include information about future opportunities, in terms of descriptions of potential roles and what these will require, feedback about relevant aspects of their current behaviour, performance or capabilities, and recommendations about the actions they could or should take. The sources of this advice can vary from informal conversations with others drawn from a potentially diverse range of people inside or outside the organization, to participation in some of the tactics and methods covered in this handbook that are designed to lead to learning that is related to, or can have an impact on, the individual’s longer term aspirations. Examples of the latter include Development Centres to provide individuals with data and analysis about their current abilities, Personal Development Plans to provide a means of grounding longer term career aims in relevant work based learning over the medium term or deputizing to give live experience of a role that could constitute a career step. Whatever formal means are used to impart career advice they may together make up a career development programme or system provided by the organization for its staff. If this is the case then the ‘programme’ might be a constituent part of the organization’s workforce or management development strategy, which itself might be linked purposively with its business strategy.
