Chapter 9 Career Development

CHAPTER 9

CAREER DEVELOPMENT
LEARNING OUTCOMES
After reading this chapter, students should be able to:

Explain who is responsible for managing careers.

Describe the term careers.
Discuss the focus of careers for both organizations and individuals.
Describe how career development and employee development differ.
Explain why career development is valuable to organizations.
Identify the five traditional stages involved in a career.
List the Holland vocational preferences.
Describe the implications of personality typologies and jobs.
Identify several suggestions that you can use to manage your career more effectively.

CHAPTER OUTLINE AND LECTURE SUGGESTIONS

I. INTRODUCTION
A. Traditionally, career development referred to programs offered by organizations to help
employees advance within the organization. Today, each individual must take
responsibility for his or her career. While many organizations still invest in their
employees, they do not offer career security and they cannot meet the needs of everyone
in a diverse workforce.
B. Organizations now focus on matching the career needs of employees with the
requirements of the organization.
II. WHAT IS A CAREER?
A. A career is a pattern of work-related experiences that span the course of a persons life,
reflecting any work, paid or unpaid. It can also include schoolwork, homemaking, and
volunteer work.
B. Individual Versus Organizational Perspective
1. Organizational career planning
a. Developing career ladders, tracking careers, providing opportunities for
development.
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2. Individual career development

a. Helping employees identify their goals and steps to achieve them.
C. Career Development Versus Employee Development
1. Career development looks at the long-term career effectiveness and success of
organizational personnel.
2. Employee training and development, discussed in Chapter 8, focuses on performance
in the immediate or intermediate time frames.
D. Career Development: Value for the Organization
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Ensures needed talent will be available.

Improves the organization's ability to attract and retain talented employees.
Ensures that minorities and women get opportunities for growth and development.
Reduces employee frustration.
Enhances cultural diversity.
Promotes organizational goodwill.

E. Career Development: Value for the Individual

1. An individuals external career success is measured by criteria such as progression up
the hierarchy, type of occupation, long-term commitment, and income.
2. Internal career success is measured by the meaningfulness of ones work and
achievement of personal life goals.
F. Mentoring and Coaching
1. Effective coaches give guidance through direction, advice, criticism, and suggestion
in an attempt to aid the employees growth.
2. Mentors are typically senior-level employees who support younger employees by
vouching for them, answering for them in the highest circles,introducing them to
others, and advising and guiding them through the corporate system.
3. The disadvantages of having senior employees coaching younger employees include
a. tendencies to perpetuate current styles and practices
b. reliance on the coachs ability to be a good teacher.
4. Coaching is most effective between employees who do not have a reporting
relationship but share other similarities in their perspectives.
5. Organizations are now exploring ways of advocating cross-gender mentoring.
III.TRADITIONAL CAREER STAGES
A. Exploration
1. Includes school and early work experiences, such as internships.

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2. Involves trying out different fields, discovering likes and dislikes, and forming
attitudes toward work and social relationship patterns.
B. Establishment
1. Includes search for work, getting first job, and getting evidence of success or
failure.
2. Takes time and energy to find a niche and to make your mark.
C. Mid-Career
1. Challenged to remain productive at work.
2. Employee may continue to grow, may plateau (stay competent but not ambitious), or
may deteriorate.
D. Late career
1. Successful elder states persons can enjoy being respected for their judgment. Good
resource for teaching others.
2. Those who have declined may experience job insecurity.
3. Plateauing is expected; life off the job increases in importance.
E. Decline (Late Stage)
1. May be most difficult for those who were most successful at earlier stages.
2. Todays longer life spans and legal protections for older workers open the possibility
for continued work contributions, either paid or volunteer.
IV. CAREER CHOICES AND PREFERENCES
A. Good career choice outcomes provide positive self-concept and opportunity to do work
we think is important.
B. Holland Vocational Preferences
1. There are three major components:
a. People have varying occupational preferences.
b. If you think your work is important, you will be a more productive employee.
c. You will have more in common with people who have similar interest patterns.
2. The model identifies six vocational themes (realistic, investigative, artistic, social,
enterprising, conventional). (See exhibit 9 4). These are used to identify an
individuals occupational preferences.
3. Preferences can be matched to work environments. For example, social-enterprisingconventional preference structure matches career ladder in large bureaucracy.
C. The Schein Anchors

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1. Identifies personal value clusters (technical-functional competence, managerial

competence, security-stability, creativity, autonomy-independence) that may be
satisfied or frustrated by work.
2. When an organization offers a particular combination of value clusters important to a
person, that individual is then anchored to the job, organization, or industry.
3. Success of person-job match determines individuals fit with the job.
D. The Myers-Briggs Typologies
1. The four personality dimensions of Extraversion-Introversion, Sensing-Intuitive,
Thinking-Feeling, and Judging-Perceiving (Exhibit 9 5) are assessed by the MyersBriggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and identify 16 different personality types.
2. It is important to know these personality types because they influence the way people
act and solve problems.
3. The MBTI is useful in helping managers match employees with jobs.
V. ENHANCING YOUR CAREER
A. The individual is responsible for managing his or her career.
B. Suggestions on how to do that include:
1. Know yourself know your strengths and weaknesses.
2. Manage your reputation make yourself and your accomplishments visible.
3. Build and maintain network contacts join national and local professional
organizations, attend conferences, and network as social gatherings.
4. Keep current develop specific skills that are in high demand.
5. Balance your specialist and generalist competencies stay current within your
technical specialty, but develop general competencies that give you the versatility to
react to an ever-changing work environment.
6. Document your achievements seek assignments that provide challenges and offer
objective evidence of your competencies.
7. Keep your options open always have a contingency plans prepared that you can call
on when needed.

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