Career Planning

The Basics of Career Management

 Career planning
 The deliberate process through which someone
becomes aware of personal skills, interests,
knowledge, motivations, and other characteristics;
and establishes action plans to attain specific
goals.
The Individual
• Accept responsibility for your own career.
• Assess your interests, skills, and values.
Roles in
• Seek out career information and resources. Career
• Establish goals and career plans.
• Utilize development opportunities. Development
• Talk with your manager about your career.
• Follow through on realistic career plans.
The Manager
• Provide timely performance feedback.
• Provide developmental assignments and support.
• Participate in career development discussions.
• Support employee development plans.
The Organization
• Communicate mission, policies, and procedures.
• Provide training and development opportunities.
Source: Fred L. Otte and Peggy G.
• Provide career information and career programs. Hutcheson, Helping Employees
Manage Careers (Upper Saddle River,
• Offer a variety of career options. NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992), p. 56.
Identify Your Occupational
Orientation
 Realistic orientation
 Investigative orientation
 Social orientation
 Conventional orientation
 Enterprising orientation
 Artistic orientation
Individual Responsibility
 Need to understand that a career has two
components.
 internal focus – your view of your career
 external focus – your actual job and the positions you fill
 Career Planning – The deliberate attempt to
know your own skills, values, opportunities,
and constraints.
 this involves making and constantly updating career goals
and the plans to achieve those goals.
Organizational Responsibility:
 Career development systems – planned efforts by a
company to achieve a balance between individual
career needs and organizational workforce
requirements. Benefits for creating these systems
include:
 better use of employee skills
 greater retention of valued employees
 an expanded public image as an organization that
develops its employees
Benefits of Career Development Systems
 For managers/supervisors:
 increased skill in managing own careers
 better communication between manager and employee
 greater understanding of the organization
 Employees:
 helpful assistance with career decisions
 more realistic goals and expectations
 greater personal responsibility for career
 Organizational:
 better use of employee skills
 dissemination of information
 greater retention of valued employees
 expanded public image
 Components of Career Development Systems
 Self-assessment tools – Usually involve exercises
and tests to determine life roles, interests, skills,
work attitudes, and preferences.
 career planning workshops – use a structured, participative group
format
 career workbooks – consist of questions and exercises about the
person, his or her wants, skills, and capabilities
 Individual counseling – good for one-on-one,
intense career work.
 practice active listening and paraphrasing
 support the employee’s learning by asking him or her about the
actions he or she has taken and how successful they were
 help the employee to work toward easier career goals first
 help the employee write out scripts in role-play possible scenarios
 provide positive feedback as employees take relevant career actions
 Components of Career Development Systems
 Information services – include communication systems to alert
employees about job openings, and database maintenance of
skills inventories.
 job posting systems
 promoting from within- High Performance Work System characteristic
 career ladders and career paths – informing new employees the progression
and requirements from entry level to upper management
 career resource centers
 other formats – newsletters, flyers, etc
 Organizational assessment programs – Methods for evaluating an
employee’s potential for growth and development.
 assessment centers – can be used as development centers as well as
performance appraisal centers
 psychological testing
 promotability forecasting – early identification of employees with high levels of
potential
 succession planning – usually restricted to senior level management
Components of Career Development Systems
 Mentoring – establishing relationships
between junior and senior colleagues or
peers.
 formal mentoring – arranged by the company; try and
match people based on values, career aspirations, likes
and dislikes, etc. For those involved with the programs,
they often increase career aspirations in the company, job
satisfaction, performance, and promotability
 informal mentoring – arranged by individuals based on
similarities between themselves and others
 effects - research supportive of mentoring, but effect sizes
with objective outcomes are small
Career Programs
 Special target groups:
 fast-track employees – must be identified early and given
constant feedback, training, and counseling
 outplacement programs – assisting terminated employees
in finding a position with another organization
 entrenched employees – taking steps to motivate
employees who are a part of the organization because
they have to be (vested, need the health insurance, etc),
but do not want to be
 supervisors – provide training for supervisors to be
coaches, mentors, advisors, appraisers, and tools of
reference
 executive coaching – used to improve performance or
refine behavior of executives in a company
Career Programs
 Women, minorities, and employees with disabilities
– Necessary to decrease adverse impact due to
layoffs, and to keep skilled employees of all types.
 New employee programs – Important for instilling a
sense of commitment and satisfaction.
 employee orientation programs
 anticipatory socialization programs
 realistic recruitment
 Late career and retirement programs – Focus here
is on helping retirees understand the life and career
changes that are taking place. Also on assisting
the transfer of valuable organizational knowledge to
younger employees before individuals leave the
organization (use retiring individuals as mentors,
etc)
Career Programs

 Programs to assist spouses and

parents.
 policies on hiring couples and relocation
assistance
 work-family programs – daycare, supervisor
training, etc.
 flexible work arrangements – job sharing, part-
time work, telecommuting, etc
 HR’s Role in Career Development
 Realistic job previews
 Challenging first jobs
 Career-oriented appraisals
 Job rotation
 Mentoring
 Networking and interactions
 Officiating assignment
Mistakes Newly Promoted Leaders Make
Doing more of what they do best
Getting captured by the wrong people
Running in a million directions at once
Failing to build momentum
Think you know everything
Sticking with existing team too long
Show every one who is in charge. You are not a leader
to win popularity contest. Don’t run for office. You are
already elected.