Career Planning and Development
Irina COZMA
Institute of Educational Sciences, BucharestHistory
One of the numerous definitions of career development was given by Gysbers and Moore
(1974): “self-development throughout one’s lifetime by interaction and integration of
roles, contexts, and events lived .” Career was related to the roles people perform (family
member, community member, worker), the contexts in which they find themselves
(home, school, community, workplace), and events planned or not, that occur in their
lives (employment, marriage, parenthood). To this definition we can add other factors that
are specific to the workplace and can influence career development: gender, ethnicity,
religion, social background (Gysbers; Hughey; Starr; Lapan, 1992).
Career development is seen as a means of satisfying both the requirements of employees
and organization; contrary to older strategies that would only respond to institutional
needs. The objective of career development is therefore professionalisation of individuals
and assuring their personal welfare, as well as the prosperity of the organizations they
work for.
Theoretical background
The notion of career involves, aside from roles a person fulfils throughout the active life,
a collection of activities. Attention must be paid to one’s career, since it is an essential
means of self-expression in the world.