Career advice means getting guidance on which career path to take, how to chart the growth path and what one needs to do to further one's career, from a knowledgeable source that has in-depth background in the field.

A person offering career advice can help guide job hunters and professionals about which job offers to accept, how to negotiate terms of employment, when to say no, which careers to steer away from, what to wear in an interview and how best to present. Also, the person can advise whether to openly discuss non-obvious diversity (religion, age, orientation or hidden disability, for example).  

Finding career advice can mean talking to a career adviser, a teacher, a friend or a mentor at work and asking specific questions about school programs, structured workplace training, personal-development courses, new apprenticeships, university courses, and jobs that are in demand now and in the future so a person can make informed choices.

There are also job boards aimed specifically at people from traditionally underrepresented groups. Visit our job center, DiversityInc Careers, to view employment and networking opportunities with diversity-friendly employers.

These types of career-development resources are especially important for job hunters and professionals with diverse backgrounds.

Since the civil-rights movement, great strides have been made regarding the representation of Blacks, Latinos, Asians, women, people with disabilities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the corporate world. Yet over the years, research has repeatedly shown that while explicit barriers have disappeared, these same underrepresented groups do not advance to leadership positions at the same rate as white people. For example, while Blacks and Latinos comprise a large segment of the private work force, Blacks held only 3.5 percent of executive/senior-level positions and Latinos held 8.8 percent in 2007, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Women make up half of the U.S. work force but hold just 16 percent of corporate officer positions. They constitute about 6 percent of top earners at Fortune 500 companies, according to a recent analysis by Catalyst.

The results are even worse for Latinas and Black and Asian women who continue to find themselves hitting the glass ceiling more often than white women. White women still dominate the top-level positions, accounting for 28.7 percent of all senior managers, compared with 3.2 percent for Blacks, 2 percent for Latinas and 1.5 percent for Asians, according to the EEOC.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects individuals against employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex or religion. But proactive efforts and career advice are still needed to address the invisible barriers that continue to deprive women, Blacks, Latinos and other underrepresented groups of career opportunities in the business world regardless of their accomplishments or merit.