Gary W. Carter & Kevin W. Cook 
Career Paths 
Charting Courses to Success for Organizations and Their Employees

CAREER PATHS

‘I like how Carter, Cook, and Dorsey have balanced the perspective and needs of the employee with the needs of the organization. They’ve provided a practical toolkit for practitioners, rooted in a strong conceptual model. I have looked at other sources on career paths in organizations, but this is the book I’d actually use to design a system.’
Steven D. Ashworth Ph.D, Manager, Human Resource Research & Analysis, Sempra Energy Utilities

‘If you are, like me, a consultant who helps organizations develop and utilize their talent toward maximum performance; or a business leader building a worldclass organization with limited financial resources; or a Human Resources manager whose Generation Y employees are anxious to get ahead – you need to read this book. It clearly defines the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of using career path models as the foundation for a comprehensive talent management process.’
Gena Cox Ph.D, Managing Consultant, Human Capital Resource Center

Career Paths offers a career path model and useful tools and tips for developing, implementing, and integrating career paths into talent management systems. The authors describe the value of career paths from individual employee, organizational, and industry standpoints and show how career path efforts can be integrated with recruitment and hiring, strategic planning, succession management, employee development, and retention programs. With a sample career path guide and a list of resources for organizations, this book is an indispensable reference for HR professionals, managers and executives, training and development professionals, and organizational consultants.

Table of Content

Series Editor’s Preface xi

Preface xiii

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

What are Career Paths? 2

The Goal of This Book 19

Overview 21

Chapter 2 A Conceptual Toolkit for Constructing Career Paths
23

Career Path Attributes 26

Career Path Patterns 27

Outcomes 29

The Bottom Line 31

Chapter 3 A Practical Toolkit for Constructing Career Paths
33

Sources and Methods 34

Past 34

Present 37

Future 37

A Note about the Special Role of Interviews and Focus Groups
38

How to Construct Career Paths 39

Initial Steps 39

Sequential List of Positions or Roles 47

Qualifi cations 53

Critical Developmental Experiences 54

Competencies that are Accrued, Strengthened, or Required 56

Career Success Factors 60

Other Information 63

Explicit Focus on Movement 64

Promoting Alignment 64

Assessment of Personal Attributes and Career Paths 64

Implementation Tips 65

The Bottom Line 67

Chapter 4 Integrating Career Paths into Talent Management
Systems I: Recruitment, Hiring, Retention, Promotion, and Employee
Development 69

Connecting the Employee to the Organization 69

Engaging the New Workforce 72

Recruitment and Hiring 73

Retention 80

Promotion 81

Development Planning and Execution 83

The Bottom Line 89

Chapter 5 Integrating Career Paths into Talent Management
Systems II: Strategic Workforce Planning, the Early Identifi cation
and Development of Executive Talent, and Succession Management
91

Keeping an Eye on the Big Picture 91

Strategic Workforce Planning 92

Identifying and Developing Early-Career, High-Potential
Leadership Talent 95

Who Are Our High Potentials? 95

How Can We Develop (and Promote) Them Faster? 97

Managing Communications Regarding High Potentials 98

Succession Management 99

Evaluating Readiness for Promotion in the Context of Succession
Management 101

Methods for Evaluating Readiness 102

Keeping Those ‘Not Yet Ready’ on the Path(s) to Get There
102

The Bottom Line 105

Chapter 6 Expanding Success Beyond the Individual
Organization – Industry and Economic Development Perspectives
107

Career Paths and the Industry Perspective 109

Examples 110

Differences between Industry Career Paths and Organizational
Career Paths 116

Career Paths and the Economic Development Perspective 118

Examples 120

Differences between Career Paths Designed for Economic
Development Purposes and Organizational Career Paths 124

Labor Market Analyses and Analyses of Cross-Occupation
Requirements 125

Labor Market Analyses 125

Analyses of Requirements across Occupations 126

The Bottom Line 127

Chapter 7 Looking to the Future 129

Trend One – Demographic Trends 130

Implications for Organizations 131

Trend Two – Technology 132

Implications for Organizations 134

Trend Three – Globalization and Changing Organizational
Structures 134

Implications for Organizations 135

Trend Four – Defi ning Career Success 136

Implications for Organizations 136

The Bottom Line 137

Career Path Resource List 139

Notes 143

References 147

Name Index 151

Subject Index 153

About the author

Gary W. Carter Ph.D, is a Vice President at Personnel Decisions Research Institutes (PDRI). He is the leader of human capital consulting services in PDRI’s Washington, DC office. Dr Carter is an Industrial/Organizational Psychologist with over 20 years of experience designing and implementing human capital systems, and career path and talent management tools.

Kevin W. Cook Ph.D, has 15 years of experience in design, development, implementation, and evaluative research of assessment and development methodologies at all employee levels. He is an expert in the field of talent management with an emphasis on global leadership assessment and development and multinational talent programs.

David W. Dorsey Ph.D, is a Vice President at Personnel Decisions Research Institutes (PDRI). He has over 15 years of experience in human capital consulting and applied research and development. He has conducted innovative work in the areas of performance measurement, career management, and training and development, produced numerous professional publications, and received multiple research awards.