THE good news for home-birds who do not relish the thought of moving abroad in order to advance their careers is that Irish companies are quite good at promoting from within. A survey of recruitment practices carried out on behalf of the Irish arm of the executive search consultants, Amrop International, found that 62 per cent of top management positions and, 156 per cent of other senior posts. were filled by internal promotions.

"We were surprised by the number of opportunities which existed at the higher levels rather than by how the positions were filled, says Karl Croke, a director of Amrop.

"That said, this degree of internal promotion is very positive as it shows that many organisations are getting their succession planning right. It also indicates that there is good management strength and depth within Irish companies and it is good for an organisation's morale in that it makes a clear statement about the opportunities for career development."

But Croke believes there is still a strong case for gaining experience outside Ireland.

"The risks for an organisation in recruiting an outsider are higher," he says. "But the expectation is that any disadvantages would be outweighed by the skills and experience the external candidate would bring. The advantage of having worked in more than one organisation is that people can bring a compare and contrast ability to their new position which adds to their breath of vision," he says.

Croke says one of the biggest factors in job success is a person's ability to fit into the culture of an organisation and this view is shared by Brian Ward of selection and human resource consultants, MERC partners.

"One of the best ways to get ahead in business may be to blend in with the crowd according to a recent management study by psychology professors Martin Kilduff and David Day," he says.

"It divides business people into two categories: the chameleon, or team player, and the individualistic, opinionated maverick. The study concludes that team players climb the corporate ladder faster than mavericks.

But before you waste time deciding which camp you fall into, Ward has some more practical advice about getting ahead. "A good business course, and it does not have to be an MBA or an MBS, will be invaluable in terms of rounding out a person's skill set," he says.

"We have reached a point, mainly due to technology and the availability of information, where it is no longer a question of being proficient in one discipline. For example, the company accountant or finance director no longer has a little empire of control over everything to do with money within an organisation. There are likely to be a number of people with access to financial information through MIS. So traditional roles are changing and the ability to manage and motivate people is becoming a key skill right across the management spectrum."

On a practical level these changes are translating into a growing demand for what Dr Liam Gorman of the Irish Management Institute calls "action learning" which he describes as the "marriage of ideas and action whereby general theories and concepts are related to students' experience in a very concrete way".

Liam Gorman says the IMI's teaching has become a lot more focused on practice and application with much more interest in issues such as strategy and related subjects like organisational design and analysis.

"We are also finding an increase in the number of people attending our courses who come from a strong technical backgrounds and feel they need to gain more a general management outlook in order to get on in their careers," he says.

For those who have put off committing themselves to a training course, Gorman has words of encouragement. "We feel that it takes seven to 10 years work experience to really get a feel for what the business world is about," he says.

"With this kind of experience behind them people can engage cognitively and intellectually in a course in a real life, gusty way which is not possible for younger people. Older students have a lot to offer each other and they generally get more out of our courses in return."