The Third International Symposium on Career Development and Public Policy was entitled "Shaping the future: Connecting career development and work development." Papers were provided by 16 nations and organisations, and this article synthesises these papers. The country teams were asked to select and address two or three of six themes: (1) human capital; (2) labour supply; (3) employability skills; (4) career development services for workforce development; (5) older workers; or (6) the evidence base. In practice, the detailed questions listed in the briefing document for the first four of these themes were diffuse and overlapped with one another. As a result, material included in many of the country papers under the first three themes related more closely to the fourth theme (career development services). In light of this, the conceptual framework for the first four themes has been altered for the purposes of this synthesis. The first theme (compiled by A. G. Watts) examines the links between the themes of human capital, labour supply, and employability skills to establish the policy arguments for career development services in the context of workforce development. Theme B (compiled by Richard Sweet) looks at workforce preparation in the form of career development for young people. The focus of Theme C (compiled by Christine Haines) is workforce adaptability in the shape of career development for adults at work. Theme D (compiled by Mary McMahon) examines workforce re-integration through career development for adults re-entering work, for example migrants and refugees, people with disabilities, Indigenous people, and unemployed people and women re-entering the workforce. The final theme (compiled by Mary McMahon) looks at career development in terms of the evidence base and professional infrastructure for career practitioners.