A career is a sequence of position held by a person during the course of life time. It comprises of a series of work related activities that provide continuity, order and meaning to a person’s life. This is an objective view of person’s career. Subjective element in the concept of career. A career consists of the change in values, attitudes and motivations that occur as a person grows older.
In both the perception, the primary focus is on individual. The underlying assumption is that a person can shape his destiny through a series of well – planned and well – timed, positive moves. It must be started here as a word of caution, mere planning does not ensure career success. A person’s career is shaped by many complex factors education, performance etc.
Features:
● A career develop over time: it covers objective conditions like as job, duties etc and also includes subjective reaction like as enthusiasm, boredom, etc.
● It is the individual who ultimately must judge the success of his career. He must set his own criteria for success, and such criteria can be ranging like pay, advantage, and helping others.
● The important element in one’s career is experiencing psychological success which basically is, feeling a sense of personal accomplishment and fulfilment. Psychological success energies our efforts and impels us to undertake new challenge, and scale new heights, that foster our growth over time.
● The typical career of a person today would probably include many different positions, transitions and organisations more so than in the past, when employees were less mobile and organisations more stable as employers.
How do People Choose Career?
- Interest: People tend to go after career that they believe match their interests.
- Self – image: A career is a reflection of a person’s self images, as well as moulders of it.
- Personality: his factor includes a person’s personal orientation and personal needs.
- Social backgrounds: Socio – economic status, education and occupational status of a person’s parents are covered in this category.
Career Planning:
Career planning is the process by which are selected career goals and the path to these goals. The major focus of career planning is on assisting the employees achieve a better match between personal goals and the opportunities that are realistically available in organisations. Career programme should not concentrate only on career growth opportunities. Practically speaking, there may not be enough high level positions to make upward mobility a reality for a large number of employees. Hence, career – planning efforts need to pin point and highlight those areas that offer psychological success instead of vertical growth.
Career planning is not an event or end in itself, but a continuous process of developing human resource for achieving optimum results. It must, however, be noted that individual and organisational careers are not separate and distinct. A person who is not able to translate his career plan into action within the organisation may probably quit the job, if he has a choice. Organisation, therefore, should help employees in career planning so that both can satisfy each other’s needs.
Need for Career Planning:
Every employee has a desire to grow and scale new heights in workplace continuously. If there are enough opportunities, he can pursue his career goals and exploit his potential fully. He feels highly motivated when the organisation shows him a clear path as to how he can meet his personal ambitions while trying to realise corporate goals. Unfortunately, as pointed out by john leach, organisations do not pay adequate attention to this aspect in actual practice for a verity of reason. The demands of employee are not match with organisational needs, no efforts is made to show how the employee can grow with in certain limits, what happens to an employee five year down the line if he does well, whether the organisation is trying to offer mere jobs or long – lasting careers, etc. when recognition does not come in time for meritorious performance and certain amount of confusion prevails in the mind of employee whether they are in with a change to grow or not, they look for greener pasture outside. Key executive leave in frustration and with the organisation suffers badly when turnover figures rise. Any recruitment effort made in panic to fill the vacancies is not going to be effective. So, the absence of a career plan is going to make a big difference to both employee and the organisation. Employees do not get right breaks at a right time; their moral will be low and they are always on their toes trying to find escape routes.
Organisations are not going to benefits from high employee turnover. New employees mean additional selection and training costs. Bridging the gaps through short – term replacements is not going to pay in terms of productivity. Organisation, therefore, try to put their career plans in place and educate employees about the opportunities that exist internally for talented people. Without such a progressive outlook, organisations cannot prosper.
Important Terms in Career Planning:
- Career: A career is all the jobs that are held during one are working life.
- Career goals: Future position one tries to reach as part of a career.
- Career cycles: The stages through which a person’s career evolves.
- Career paths: These are flexible lines of progression through which employees typically more.
- Career anchors: They are distinct patterns of self – perceived talents, attitudes, motives, and values that guide and stability a person’s career after several year of real – world experience and feedback.
- Career progression: Making progress in one career through a series of right moves.
- Career Planning: The process by which one selects career goals and the paths of those goals.
- Career Development: The personal action one undertakes to achieve a career plan.
- Career Planning and Development: Extending helps to employees to form realistic career goals and the opportunities to realise them.
- Career Counselling: The process of advising employees on setting career goals and assisting them find suitable career paths.
- Career Management: It is the continuing process of setting career goals, formulating and implementing strategies for teaching the goals and monitoring the results.
- Mid – career crisis: The period occurring between the mid – thirties and mid – forties during which people often make a major reassessment of their progress relative to their original career goals and ambitions.
- Reality shock: A period that may occur at the initial career entry when the new employee’s high job expectations confront the reality of a boring, unchallenging job.
- Plateauing: A Condition of stagnating in one current job.
- Mentor: Someone who extends information career advice and assistant.