Manual vs AI-supported career development tools

Gone are the days when school leavers or university graduates sat down with the sole career advisor in their educational establishment to discuss how to get and develop a career. And who would ever flick through a book on all the different types of jobs that were available?

That seems like a world away now. And it is.

The new world of work and career development embraces all sorts of technologies, systems, and processes to dig deep into how to progress within a career and what a career path can look like. With the rapid transformation in career development being driven by AI and digital tech, the crucial question is this – are AI career development tools replacing those traditional frameworks or complementing them?

Before delving into the manual versus AI career development tools debate, let’s take a more detailed look at what career development tools actually are.

They are structured frameworks, resources, and technologies helping employees to plan and progress their careers, while simultaneously aiding businesses to effectively develop, retain, and deploy their talent for increased retention. These normally include:

• Career pathways
• Competency frameworks
• Skills audits
• Performance reviews
• Mentoring programmes

For members of staff, these tools provide clarity on their strengths, any skill gaps, and next steps that are actually realistic. For employers, they offer support during workforce and succession planning, internal mobility, and employee engagement, with the aim of balancing personalised and achievable goals for employees while aligning with organisational needs.

There seems to be a distinct dissatisfaction from workers with regards to the career development support that their employer provides, with 53% lacking the confidence in bosses to invest in their skills development. The same survey shows that 42% of staff think that AI will replace some of their work duties, while 42% of UK workers rank skills as the most important for their roles, as opposed to 33% globally.

It’s clear that traditional tools, such as performance reviews, mentorship programmes, and competency frameworks, still play a major role in career development.

Let’s take a more detailed look at what is meant by manual career development tools, along with their pros and cons.

Performance reviews and 1-2-1 development conversations – formal performance reviews, normally undertaken annually or bi-annually, assess an employee’s performance against their objectives and competencies. Regular 1-2-1s hone in on specific development needs, aspirations, and opportunities. Combined, they create an ongoing loop of feedback that boosts staff engagement, spots early signs of any skills gaps, and improves personalised development planning. 

Mentorship programmes – including coaching and development workshops, provide human-based learning that dovetails with the more formal structures. Mentoring should be personalised, offering guidance based on experience, while bespoke coaching unlocks potential and improves performance. These tools are effective for building confidence, developing leaders, and steering a path through career transitions, while reinforcing a culture of learning and growth. 

Competency frameworks – these define the knowledge, behaviours, skills, and values that are required to perform to the required standard in any role or at a particular level. These career progression frameworks show employees what “good” should be, and what they need to achieve in order to progress forward, by providing common ground across performance and development.

• Strong on soft skills development and customised coaching
• Offers a high level of human insight and contextual judgement
• Helps to build better relationships between line managers and employees, due to a more personalised approach

• It takes a lot of time and administrative effort to set everything up
• Inconsistencies can crop up across managers and teams if communication isn’t 100%
• More difficult to scale and update within environments that change quickly
  
  

Now let’s delve into what AI career development tools offer the workplace, along with their pros and cons.

Skills gap analysis – AI is used to swiftly compare each employee’s current skills with what their role requires, along with relevant data about the labour market. This allows businesses to spot any gaps at workforce and employee levels, while providing learning recommendations that tally with future needs, bringing clarity to development efforts for employees. 

Career path prediction engines – these specifically analyse career histories, skills profiles, and internal mobility to suggest potential promotions or progression pathways in order to retain employees. They help employees see what options are there for them either within the company they work for or the industry they are in.

Personalised learning content – this might be personalised, but it’s AI that tailors learning paths by analysing an individual’s job, their skills gaps, their goals, and learning behaviours. This greatly reduces the risk of undertaking unnecessary or generic training, while improving a business’s return on investment.

Automated assessments – speeding up the time to provide consistent insights, AI is used to analyse performance data, feedback, and assessments, so they can identify development needs earlier and support continuous performance management. This then frees up time for managers and HR departments to focus their attention on coaching and more in-depth career development conversations.

• Consistent and easy to scale
• Increases the transparency around career progression, leading to improved employee engagement
• Provides faster data-driven insights and personalisation that might be tricky to identify manually

• Lays itself open to misinterpretation and bias, due to using historical data
• Has limited knowledge of values, ambition, and life context; key ingredients that are vital for career development
• Throws up trust issues, with employees still sceptical about the process and the involvement of AI
  
  

Now that we’ve taken a separate and closer look at both manual and AI career development tools, it’s time for a side-by-side comparison.

	Manual	AI
Employee experience	Personalised and motivating	Personalised, with risk of bias or unwillingness of staff to fully engage
Consistency & scale	Can vary between teams and departments	Stays consistent across even the largest of workforces
Depth of insight	Offers rich and refined judgement from managers	Offers data-driven patterns, with predictive insights from large data sets
Time efficiency	Very time-intensive for performance reviews and assessing CVs	Saves time on administrative duties, with recruiters reporting savings of 2.5 hours a week
Bias, fairness & ethics	Unconscious bias can be embedded within manual reviews	At risk of algorithmic bias, with 41% of HR professionals citing this as a true concern

• Use AI alongside manual practices to improve career development plans; for example, use AI to deal with the data and administrative side, while the people get on with handling judgement and nuance
• Communicate openly, making it clear where and how AI is used when it comes to employees
• Set up hybrid career pathways, using AI to suggest learning journeys and coaches to refine and support those goals
• Invest in training, both in AI literacy and building the confidence of the workforce
• Upskill leaders and managers on how to interpret AI insights
• Leverage AI to free up the time for strategic talent development and retention
  
  

Who, nowadays, would swap a washing machine for a mangle? Or get rid of their phone and opt for letter writing instead as their main form of communication? It just wouldn’t happen. It’s all about moving forward. AI is here to stay, so we might as well embrace it.

AI isn’t the threat to career development tools that some people might think. It’s actually an enabler, when used alongside comprehensive human practice.

Remember, it can be used to our advantage.

• The impact of manual and AI career development tools depends on how well they are incorporated into the culture, daily work practices, and the leadership capability
• Traditional tools form the foundation of career development, from mentoring and progression pathways to 1-2-1 conversations and competency frameworks
• AI enhances consistency and scale, while being great at spotting skill gaps and saving the time and energy of workers and managers
• It doesn’t have to be either…or; combining manual tools with AI career development tools will enhance, not replace, career conversations.
• It’s leadership across the organisation, not technology, that makes the difference, by guiding staff to embrace change and grow professionally.

If your organisation is keen to find out more about career frameworks, how AI can help, or outplacement services, contact us at the earliest opportunity to find out more.