In order to ensure a productive yet stable academic environment, a fine balance must be struck between the permanent and qualification positions held by members of academic staff. Over the last few years, the University of Education Schwäbisch Gmünd (UE SG) has maintained an active personnel policy that is reflected in its human resource development concept. Using funds raised from competitive study course development funding programmes and research colleges, the institution has appointed additional professors and non-professorial teaching staff. UE SG has also furthered its commitment to quality by establishing a number of junior professorships and increasing staffing levels in academic management. With regard to university strategy, this enabled the faculties and their respective institutes to engage in more flexible personnel planning, which in turn generated extra scope for research and the acquisition of further academic qualifications by junior academics (both fixed-term and open-ended). And with the new ‘TT on Top’ tenure-track programme plus the new Advanced Scientific Career Hub (AnSCHub), UE SG underpins this human resource development system by offering a clearly defined range of career paths for young academic talents. This enables transparent and plannable academic careers, which numbered among the recommendations issued by the German Council of Science and Humanities (WR) in 2014. This development programme is implemented by means of two distinct strategies: firstly, W2/W3 professorships feature the new personnel category of ‘tenure-track professorship’ to denote their status as a reliable career path, while open-ended academic roles will be more clearly defined and diversified. Secondly, these changes to the various career paths are supported through the AnSCHub career portal, which features career development opportunities that enable junior academics to move horizontally and vertically within the career system.