1. Assessment
2. Investigation
3. Preparation
4. Commitment
5. Retention
6. Transition

These are the six stages of modern career development. Learning the characteristics of each stage will enable you to navigate through each stage easily and with more confidence.

1. Assessment stage

In this stage, you are getting ready for your life's work. This career development stage is also characterized by unawareness.  You are not sure what your values, strengths, and weaknesses are.

You start to feel as though you want to know more about yourself and make a conscious effort to get in touch with who you really are.

Career development key characteristics: Taking assessment instruments and working with a career counselor or career coach.

2. Investigation career development stage

You are researching what work exists in the world. This development stage in your career is characterized by feelings of confusion, in that you are not sure what career options exist for you.

You may feel overwhelmed with all of the jobs and opportunities that exist as you begin the process of researching the modern world of work. But if you approach this stage with a positive frame of mind, you will find that you will learn about many possibilities you may have never considered.

Career development key characteristics: Researching the world of work. Conducting informational interviews with people in your chosen field

3. Preparation career development stage

You are still getting ready to do your life's work. Here exists feelings of excitement, as you think of how wonderful it will be to perform meaningful work.

However, there is still much work to be done, and to be successful, you have to prepare.

Career development key characteristics: Gaining knowledge and experience. Setting goals and adopting a success-oriented mind-set.

4. Commitment Stage

You will feel confident that you have figured out what you are meant to do. Sometimes people have known all along what they were meant to do but could not commit to the process of making it happen, for whatever reason. At this stage, more than ever, you must focus your energy and keep your eye on the target.

Career development key characteristics: Conducting a job search. Negotiating and accepting a job offer .

5. Retention Stage

You will feel comfortable in your career field, as you will now have figured out how things work in your industry. You will want to remain committed to your career by continually updating your skill set and staying current with industry standards.

Career development key characteristics: Providing first-class customer-service skills. Building a professional network

6. Transition Stage

Is characterized by feelings of discomfort in that you are unsure of what you will be doing next (and/or if you will be happy). In this stage, you will learn to make conscious changes in your career direction.

No matter what career stage you find yourself in now, you can be sure that you will enter and re-enter through these six stages many times throughout your lifetime.

Career development key characteristics: Making career changes. Developing resiliency

No matter what career development stage you are into right now, you can be sure that you will enter and re-enter through those six stages many times throughout your lifetime. It may not be immediately after one stage. It will all depend on how you are going about your career development.

Do you wish you were? Take it slowly and make sure what you really want to do is change careers.

Remember that career change is a natural life progression. Most studies show that the average job seeker will change careers several times over the course of his or her lifetime.

Use this 6-step plan.  This will ensure that you will be on the right footing and on a path toward career change success.

1. Assessment of Likes and Dislikes.

A lot of people change careers because they dislike their job, their boss, their company and so forth. Identifying the dislikes is often the easier part of this step.

You will not know what direction to change your career unless you examine your likes. What do you really like doing when you are working, when you are at home and in your spare time? What excites you and energizes you? What is your passion?

If you are still unsure, consider taking one of more of those career assessments. The key is spending some time rediscovering yourself and using your self-assessment to direct your new career search.

2. Researching new careers.

Once you have discovered your passion, spend some time researching the types of careers that center on your passions. Do not worry if you are feeling a bit unsure or insecure; it is a natural part of the career change process.

How much research you do also partly depends on how much of a change you want.

3. Transferable skills.

Leverage some of your current skills and experiences to your new career. There are many skills that are transferable and applicable to what you want to do in your new career. You may be surprised to see that you already have a solid amount of experience needed for your new career.

4. Training and education.

You may find it necessary to update your skills and broaden your knowledge. Take it slowly.

If the skill you need to learn is one you could use in your current job, see if your current employer would be willing to pick up the tab. Take a course or two to ensure you really like the subject matter.

If you are going for a new degree or certification, make sure you check the accreditation of the school. Get some information about placement successes.

5. Networking.

One of the real keys to successfully changing careers will be your networking ability. People in your network may be able to give you job leads, offer you advice and information about a particular company or industry and introduce you to others so that you can expand your network.

Even if you do not think you already have a network, you probably do. Consider colleagues, friends, and family members.

You can also broaden your network through joining professional organizations in your new field and contacting alumni from your college who are working in the field you want to enter. A key tool of networking is conducting informational interviews.

6. Be Flexible. You will need to be flexible about nearly everything, from your employment status to relocation and salary.

Set positive goals for yourself, but expect setbacks and change. Do not let these things get you down. Besides totally new careers, you might also consider a lateral move that could serve as a springboard for a bigger career change.

It is true that professionals are constantly looking for ways career builders to continuously improve in their chosen field. It is also true that they are also on the look out for those career “breakers”.

Read on and see if any of these behaviors are impacting your career in a negative way.

Today, everyone is looking for the secret to career builder success. Professionals read books, take training classes, ask questions, study others that are successful and strive to outperform themselves.

However, some behavior patterns can develop into bad habits and cause even the most seasoned and professional person to self-destruct.

Let us take a look at some common behaviors that can stop your career on its track. As you read these 9 behaviors you may recognize some areas you will want to change to keep your career and your career builder on course.

The following are some career builders and their opposite career breakers:

Career builder: Confidence.
Career breaker: Over Confidence:
While you need a healthy dose of self-confidence to carry you through those tough times you also need to keep your confidence and ego in balance.

Keeping your ego in check will prevent you from thinking you are more important than those around you and missing out on their good ideas and solutions.

Career builder: Time well spent.
Career breaker: Time abuse.
You only have 24 hours a day. Use each one of them wisely. Guard against intruders such as non-important phone calls, emails and messages that do not specifically relate to your job. Also make sure you save some time for personal development and pleasures.

Career builder: Good communication skills.
Career breaker: Failing to communicate.
The most effective professionals spend 80% of their time listening and only 20% of their time talking. They then spend 80% of their talking time asking questions. How does your communication ratio stack up to this standard?

Career builder: Long term concepts.
Career breaker: Short-Sightedness.
Approach your problems and decisions with a long-term view in mind. Ask how what you do today will affect the organization 2 years, 5 years and 10 years from now. While this does not mean every decision you make will have that kind of impact far in the future, however it is a good way to verify your thinking.

Career builder: A stable and organized record.
Career breaker: Not keeping good records.
Are you using a good contact management tool? If not consider starting today. A contact management tool will keep important information about peers, customers, and clients in one easy to access place.

Career builder: Continuous growth and development.
Career breaker: Stunted growth; a quitter.
Become a better person and reach higher levels of success by continuing to feed your mind.

Career builder: Keeping a fair share of the workload.
Career breaker: Not delegating some of your workload.
Today almost everyone is doing the job that just a few years ago were done by as many as two people or more. If you do not delegate a portion of your work to others that are capable of doing the job, you can become overloaded and perhaps all of your other work will suffer.

Take a look at your current workload and see what you can pass on to someone else. Do not forget to give credit to the person you delegated the job to.

What do you want be when you grow up? If you are trying to figure that out, you are probably considering taking some career assessment tests.

It is indeed a great idea. Be careful, though. Used wisely, career assessments can help you get a better sense of the types of jobs and activities that might be a good fit for you.
 
However, people who take career assessment tests misunderstand them, misuse them or mistake them for being more than they really are.

Career assessments are not tests at all.

The word "test" implies right or wrong answers. Most career assessments do not have right and wrong answers. Whatever career assessments you choose to pursue, know that your goal is not to be right but to be accurate and true to yourself.

Career assessments do not tell, they suggest.

No matter which career test you take, its purpose is not to tell you a specific career to pursue. No tool is that powerful.
 
All a career assessment can do is suggest ideas about careers you might want to explore in more depth.

Think about it this way: If any career test
could accurately tell you which occupation to go into, why isn’t everyone be taking it?
“Garbage in equals garbage out”.

A career test's results will only be as good as the information you put in through your responses. So be honest.

Respond in terms of the way you actually are, not the way you hope to be or wish you could be. And make sure the responses are yours, not those of someone else in your life.

Consider your results with a very open mind.

Some career assessments offer a list of potential careers that might be a good match for you in their results. Do not make these tragic mistakes. Thoroughly explore all the occupational suggestions that show up in your test results, not just the ones you are familiar with.

Beware of junk.

There are many career "tests" available online. Some of these tools are quite reliable and valid, but many are not.
 
Explore career assessments with a dose of skepticism and be a smart consumer. Has the test you are about to take, and perhaps pay good money for, been well-researched so it accurately measures what it claims to measure?

Do not get test-happy.

You can easily convince yourself that you are doing something about your career concerns by completing a whole bunch of career assessments.

But it is easy to fall into the trap of doing so much testing that you are not taking any other constructive action on your career: The paralysis-by-analysis quandary.

Go easy on the number of tests you complete; there are lots of other things you can and should also be doing to explore your career options, like informational interviews or reading books about a field of potential interest.

Career assessments have helped many thousands of people get a better sense of where they might fit in the world of work.

But thousands of other people who have taken these same tests would have been much better off not using them at all. It will all depend on the person taking them.

It is better to be confident. Confident both in the career assessment tests you take and in how you interpret and use the results.

Countless professionals are yearning for a more fulfilling business career that can give them both personal and professional satisfaction. Who can blame them?

They want the freedom to design the career of their dreams and the self-reliance to trust that they have made the right decision.

Think back for a moment to your first bicycle experience. Who taught you how to ride? What lessons did you learn? Are you the same now as you were when you were a little girl or boy?

When we look back at the many ways our bicycle experiences have impacted our lives, we gain a better understanding of how to recapture those childhood feelings of independence, adventure, and joy.

We learn how to maneuver though our business career journey. We are able to enjoy this ride we call life. The following suggestions will help you regain your sense of balance so you can grow to reach your true business career objectives.

Safely navigate work's obstacles and challenges.

In order to excel professionally, you need the ability to learn from any past mistakes rather than dwell on them. While learning lessons only through positive experiences would be terrific, life is not like that for a good reason.

Our negative experiences teach us how to use failure as a learning tool. In fact, we would not be who we are if we did not have both the unique good and bad lessons that taught us what we needed to know.

The truth is that the only wrong mistake is one we do not learn from. Another key to mastering the ride of life is to understand that when things go wrong, we have a choice.

We can be our own worst enemy or we can be our own best friends. We can criticize ourselves and curse our own bad luck, or we can coach ourselves, extract value from what we learned, and focus on how we can handle that situation better in the future.
The next time something devastating happens to you, whether it is a layoff or a failed project, remember that there are lessons to be learned.

Take the direct route.

Many people are so confused at work that they do not know what is expected of them anymore. They cannot get honest feedback from colleagues or managers, and they question whether or not their work is up to company standards.

It is during these times that people need to use straight talk to build rapport with others and solve issues.

Straight talk means being able to communicate openly and honestly without alienation or hurt feelings. When you use straight talk, you are being direct and truthful, and this makes you feel self-confident and enables you to gain the respect and mutual feedback you deserve.

Encourage straight talk in your office by thinking about what you really want to say, writing it down, and practicing it. The more you use it, the more comfortable you will feel and the more your colleagues will follow your lead.

In order to continually improve and grow your business career, being direct and opening the lines of communication will be a step in the right direction.

Business career success has nothing to do with your financial success or your position title. It is about the sense of accomplishment you feel at the end of your day and the enthusiasm you have about your work.