Rethinking career development in an era of portfolio careers

In this exploratory article we argue that changes in society, the nature of work and of the employment relationship have changed the nature of careers and consequently require a re‐conceptualization of the nature of career development. The traditional functional models of human resource management are hopelessly inadequate in addressing the changed reality of competitive advantage in business organizations of today. We propose new models of career development in the context of the era of the portfolio career reality, draw implications for human resource management practice and suggest fruitful avenues for future research.