How to Manage our Careers?

Final class
 Careers provide a link between the inner world of self and
the outer world of society. This link is an important one,
because it is through their careers that many people seek
personal meaning in their lives.
Your However, the contemporary work environment is persistently
Career changing, and the markers that once guided career paths are
becoming increasingly blurred.
Should
Nurture In a world characterized by change and uncertainty, careers
are critical to self-development, perhaps more than ever
Your before.

Passion: As human beings, careers, and the jobs we performed

within them, provide “places to nurture our passions,
places where we can become more”
Boundaryless Jobs:
As careers become increasingly “boundaryless”, the
traditional division between “work” and “the rest of life”
becomes more questionable.

The idea of remaining in one job for life has been replaced by
a variety of alternatives: part-time work, contract work, job
sharing, flextime, virtual work, and self- employment.

The benefits of an infinite number of possible work

configurations are countered by increasing pressure to be
proactive in the search for career success.

People may feel that they are being pulled in a myriad of

directions) not only to enhance career success but also to
manage multiple, and often competing , life roles.
Meaningful work:
For many people, the purpose of work is
changing from an economic or even a
vocational imperative to a broader
dynamic that emphasizes personal
meaning.
Different skills are required to ensure
success, and support is often sought
from a professional to guide the way.
Intelligent Career Theory:

Their underlying concept of

the intelligent career
Let us learn about oue self Personal values and
presented a holistic the motivation to work,
awareness? interests,
approach in which self-
awareness is fundamental.

the breadth of relationships Intelligent career theory

that provide support for the posits three “ways of
skills and knowledge, foci for new learning, career actor are all integral knowing”: knowing-why,
aspects of the intelligent knowing-how, and
career concept. I knowing-whom
Knowing-why:
involves themes of individual motivation, the construction of
personal meaning, and identification.

As such, it incorporates career counselors’ traditional concern

with the distinctiveness of the individual clients regarding such
constructs as personality, aptitudes, values, and interests.

Knowing-why further incorporates clients’ attitudes to family,

community, and other nonwork aspects of life that affect career
choice, adaptability, and commitment
Knowing-How:
Reflects an individual’s repertoire of career-relevant skills and expertise
available to support current work behavior.

These may include both formal qualifications and training as well as informal
and tacit knowledge that emerges from work experience. People may have, or
may wish to develop, a broader set of knowing- how skills than their present
job demands; therefore, they may seek to expand or change their work
arrangements to enhance career opportunities and employability.
People may have, or may wish to develop, a broader set of knowing- how
skills than their present job demands; therefore, they may seek to expand or
change their work arrangements to enhance career opportunities and
employability.
Knowing-whom

Knowing-whom includes a person’s work

relationships spanning the set of supplier, customer,
industry, and internal company connections that can
support a person’s unfolding career.

Knowing-whom also incorporates personal

relationships and broader.
Knowing-whom
(cont.d)
• contacts with family, friends, alumni, and
professional and social acquaintances.
• Any of the preceding people can enhance careers
by providing support, transmitting positive
messages about the client, or affording access to
information.
 • The theory offers a distinctive way of seeing the interplay
between aspects of a person’s career situation.
• Someone’s knowing-why motivation to work in a particular
How does occupation or industry will influence development of knowing-
how skills and knowledge pertinent to that field.

theory play? • Working alongside others with similar skills will affect
knowing-whom relationships that can provide support and
access to information. The relationships will also reinforce or
confront the knowing-why identity associated with working in
the particular field.
• The interconnections among the three ways of knowing are
continuously played out over the course of an individual’s
career. Strength in one of the areas may be leveraged to
develop capability in the other two. The interplay has been
likened to a process of building nonfinancial “career capital” as
time unfolds
Career MGMT Cycle Late Career

Mid Career

Solid citizen Dead wood

Exploration phase Early

career

Achievement phase
obsolete
Establishment phase

IMD center for T and D

 • Exploration phase

• The careers of our parents, their aspirations for their

How to draw children and their financial sources are crucial factors in
determining our perception of what careers are open to us.
your career • The exploration period ends for most of us in our mid-
twenties as we make the transition from college to work.
life cycle? From an organizational standpoint this stage has little
relevance since it occurs prior to employment.
• However, this period is not irrelevant because it is a time
when a number of expectations about one’s career are
developed, many of which are unrealistic. Such
expectations may lie dormant for years and then pop up
later to frustrate both the employee and the employer.
 • Early career : (establishment)
• The establishment period begins with the search for work
and includes our First job, being accepted by our peers,
How to draw learning the job and gaining the first tangible evidence of
success or failure in the real world. It is a time which begins
your career with uncertainties, anxieties and risks.

life cycle? • It is also marked by making mistakes and learning from

these mistakes and the gradual assumption of increased
responsibilities. However, the individual in this stage has
yet to reach his peak productivity and rarely gets the job
that carries great power or high status.
 • Mid Career Plateaued: (solid citizen or deadwood)
• Most people do not face their first severe dilemmas until
they reach their mid-career stage.

How to draw • This is a time when individuals may continue their prior
improvements in performance or begin to deteriorate.
your career • At this point in a career, one is expected to have moved
beyond apprenticeship to worker-status.
life cycle?
• Those who make a successful transition assume greater
responsibilities and get rewards.
• For others, it may be a time for reassessment, job changes,
adjustment of priorities or the pursuit of alternative
lifestyles.
 • Late Career:

How to draw • For those who continue to grow through the mid- career
stage, the late career usually is a pleasant time when one is
your career allowed the luxury to relax a bit.
• It is the time when one can enjoy the respect given to him
life cycle? by younger employees.
• During the late career, individuals are no longer learning,
they teach others on the basis of the knowledge they have
gained.
 To those who have stagnated during the
previous stage, the late career brings the
reality that they cannot change the world
as they had once thought.

Late Career: It is a time when individuals have

decreased work mobility and may be
locked into their current job. One starts
looking forward to retirement and the
opportunities of doing something
different.
 • The final stage in one’s career is difficult
for everyone but it is hardest for those
who have had continued successes in the
Decline earlier stages. After several decades of
continuous achievements and high levels
( Retirement) of performance, the time has come for
retirement.
 • Managers should be more concerned with the match for
new employees and those just beginning their employment
careers. Successful placement at this stage should provide
significant advantages to both the organization and the
individual.

• Many employees lack proper information about career

Decline options. As managers identify career-paths that successful
employees follow within the organisation, they should
(Retirement) publish this information. To provide information to all
employees about job openings, managers can use job
posting.

• Job posting provides a channel by which the organisation

lets employees know what jobs are available and what
requirements they will have to fulfill to achieve the
promotions to which they may aspire.
Career Counseling

One of the most logical parts of a career development program is career

counseling.
This can be made part of an individual’s annual performance review.
The career counseling process should contain the
following elements:

• (a) The employee’s goals, aspirations and expectations with regard to his own career for
the next five or six years.

• (b) The manager’s view of the opportunities available and the degree to which the
employee’s aspirations are realistic and match with the opportunities available.

• (c) Identification of what the employee would have to do in the way of further self-
development to qualify for new opportunities.

• (d) New job assignments that would prepare the employee for further career growth.
Training and Educational Development Activities

• Training and educational development activities reduce the possibilities that employees
will find themselves with obsolete skills.
• When these development activities are properly aligned with an individual’s aspirations
and organizational needs, they become an essential element in an employee’s career
growth.
 • Encouraging employees to continue their education and
training so as to prevent obsolescence and stimulate career
growth, managers should be aware that periodic job
changes can achieve similar ends.

• Job changes can take the form of vertical promotions,

lateral transfers or assignments organized around new
Prevent tasks.

Obsolescence: • Available evidence suggests that employees who receive

challenging job assignments early in their careers do better
on their jobs.

• The degree of stimulation and challenge in a person’s initial

job assignment tends to be significantly related to later
career success and retention in the organization.
 • Did you learn most?
• On what basis did you
join your work?
• Which organizations
appreciated you?
Which part of • Why did you leave it?
your career: • Do you still have friends
in organizations?
• How many organizations
were you unable to
understand their
culture?
 Class • You will draw your career
line based on your jobs
Assignment and life experiences.