Introduction to Career Management

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 Definitions/Concepts
 Job progression:
The hierarchy of jobs a new employee might experience,
ranging from a starting job to jobs that successively require
more knowledge and/or skill.
 Career:
A career represents a sequence of positions, jobs, or
occupations that a person has over his or her working life.
 Career paths:
Lines of advancement in an occupational field within an
organization.

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 Job Progressions and Career Paths

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 Definitions/Concepts
 Career Management:

Career management is conscious planning of

one's activities and engagements in the jobs
one undertakes in the course of his life for
better fulfilment, growth and financial stability.

It is a sequential process that starts from an

understanding of oneself and encompasses
occupational awareness.

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 Definitions/Concepts
 Career Planning:

Career planning is the deliberate process through which

someone becomes aware of his or her personal skills,
interests, knowledge, motivations, and other characteristics;
acquire information about opportunities and choices;
identifies career-related goals, and establishes action plans
to attain specific goals.

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•
 Definitions/Concepts
 Career Development:

Career development is the life-long series of activities (such

as training & development, job rotation, feedback) that
contribute to a person’s career exploration, establishment,
success, and fulfilment.

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 Low ceiling careers:
Some careers do not have scope for much
advancement. Employees cannot get promotions
despite their career plans and development in
such jobs.
 Career Plateau:
A situation in which for either organizational or
personal reasons the probability of moving up the
career ladder is low.
 Career Plateau Questions

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 Career Anchors
Edgar Schein had proposed eight career themes and had
shown that people identify primarily with one or two.
The anchors can enable people to recognize their
preferences for certain areas in their job which can help
career planning.
For example, a person with a primary theme of
autonomy/independence will seek to work under their own
rules and be less likely to conform to organizational norms.
People are generally more fulfilled in their careers when they
can satisfy their career anchors and seek roles that are
aligned with these anchors.
The eight career anchors are:

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 Anchor Definition
Technical/ Primarily excited by the content of the work itself;
Functional prefers advancement only in his/her technical or
Competence functional area of competence; generally disdains and
fears general management as too political.
Managerial Primarily excited by the opportunity to analyze and
Competence solve problems under conditions of incomplete
information and uncertainty; likes harnessing people
together to achieve common goals; stimulated (rather
than exhausted) by crisis situations.
Security, Primarily motivated by job security and long-term
Stability, attachment to on organization; willing to conform and to
Organizational be fully socialized into an organization's values and
identity norms; tends to dislike travel and relocation.
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 Anchor Definition
Entrepreneurial Primarily motivated by the need to build or create
Creativity something that is entirely their own project; easily bored
and likes to move from project to project; more interested
in initiating new enterprises than in managing established
ones.

Autonomy/ Primarily motivated to seek work situations which are

Independence maximally free of organizational constraints; wants to set
own schedule and pace of work; is willing to trade off
opportunities for promotion to have more freedom.

Sense of Primarily motivated to improve the world in some fashion;

Service/ wants to align work activities with personal values about
Dedication to a helping society; more concerned with finding jobs which
Cause meet their values than their skills.
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 Anchor Definition
Pure Challenge Primarily motivated to overcome major obstacles, solve
almost unsolvable problems, or win out over extremely
tough opponents; define their careers in terms of daily
combat or competition in which winning is everything;
very single minded and intolerant of those without
comparable success.
Lifestyle Primarily motivated to balance career with
Integration lifestyle; highly concerned with such issues as
paternity/maternity leave, day care options etc. Looks for
organizations that have strong pro family values and
programs.

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 Person-Job fit-Holland’s Typology

The Holland Occupational Themes theory and its

“Holland Codes” were introduced by American
psychologist John L. Holland in the 1970’s.
It is a type theory of personality that looks
specifically at careers and vocational choice.
Holland proposed that there are six unique
personality types, which are determined by our
interests and how we approach life situations.
These six types are:
 Person-Job fit-Holland’s Typology

• Realistic types (doers) are those who like to

work with “things”. They tend to adopt a concrete
approach to problem solving and can often be
assertive, competitive and interested in activities
that require motor coordination, skill and
strength.
• Investigative types (thinkers) are those who like
to solve complex problems. The investigative
type tends to be very analytical and prefers to
work with data and logic.
 Person-Job fit-Holland’s Typology

• Artistic types (creators) are those who think

outside the box they do not tend to just accept
and follow rules. Artistic types tend to have the
natural ability to see things from different
perspectives and to come up with new, creative
and innovative, ideas.
• Social types (helpers) are the type that like
people the most. They tend to be welcoming,
sociable and very much like to serve and help
others, and finding great joy in it.
 Person-Job fit-Holland’s Typology

• Enterprising types (persuaders) are the types of

people who have the natural ability to lead
others. Often, these types are very persuasive
and with this comes the natural ability to sell
things.
• Conventional types (organizers) tend to like
structure, rules and order. They are often very
organized and methodical, and like to get things
done on time to a very high standard.
Person-Job fit-Holland’s Typology
 Person-Job fit-Holland’s Typology

Holland proposed that, by the time we reach the

end of our adolescences, most people’s interests
resemble a combination of the six personality
types, meaning our personality is a composite of
several types.
Our personality, the combination of our preference
towards each type, is shown by a unique code
(hence the name ‘Holland codes’), which is written
in the order of which our interests correspond to
each personality type.
 Person-Job fit-Holland’s Typology

For example, your full code might be ‘IRCAES’,

which suggests that your interests align most with
the investigative type, then the realistic type, then
the conventional type and so on.
There are actually a huge 720 possible type
combinations. However, when applying or
interpreting the model for assessment and
intervention, attention is normally only paid to the
first three letters (and the types that they
correspond to).