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.

An individual‟s career is the sole source of one‟s natural expression of self. One school of
thought describes work as the purpose of life and the source of one‟s expression and the
purpose of being or existence. Yet others believe that there is a wide difference between
an individual‟s career and his life. In any case, career is an integral component of one‟s
life and therefore the need for its management.

Definitions:

1. A career may be defined as „ a sequence of jobs that constitute what a person does for
a living‟.

2. According to Schermerborn, Hunt, and Osborn, „Career planning is a process of

systematically matching career goals and individual capabilities with opportunities for
their fulfillment‟.

The onus of career management is more on the individual self than the employer.
Ensuring personal development in terms of skills, competencies, change in attitude with
time are things one may need to take care of on one‟s own. Short term goals need to met
and evaluated. The long term career goals need to be revised with the change in
employment scenario and self; organisations may or may not be concerned in a big way
or aligned to your priorities in career and life. Often counselling is of major help in
evaluating a job and the future prospects and for establishing clarity of values for they
undergo a change with the passage of time!
Features of Career Planning and Career Development:

1. It is an ongoing process.
2. It helps individuals develop skills required to fulfill different career role
3. It strengthens work-related activities in the organization.
4. It defines life, career, abilities, and interests of the employees.
5. It can also give professional directions, as they relate to career goals.

Objectives of Career Planning:

1. To identify positive characteristics of the employees.

2. To develop awareness about each employee‟s uniqueness.
3. To respect feelings of other employees.
4. To attract talented employees to the organization.
5. To train employees towards team-building skills.
6. To create healthy ways of dealing with conflicts, emotions, and stress.

Benefits of Career Planning:

1. Career planning ensures a constant supply of promotable employees.

2. It helps in improving the loyalty of employees.
3. Career planning encourages an employee‟s growth and development.
4. It discourages the negative attitude of superiors who are interested in suppressing
the growth of the subordinates.
5. It ensures that senior management knows about the calibre and capacity of the
employees who can move upwards.
6. It can always create a team of employees prepared enough to meet any
contingency.
7. Career planning reduces labour turnover.
8. Every organization prepares succession planning towards which career planning is
the first step.

Holland’s Career Typology Theory: An off-shoot of the trait-factor theory can be

seen in the work of John Holland. Like the trait-factor approach, Holland‟s Career
Typology focuses on individual characteristics and occupational task. Holland‟s
theory expanded the concept of personality types and posited that:
Personalities fall into six broad categories: realistic, investigative, artistic, social,
enterprising and conventional (often referred to as RIASEC).

Since certain personalities are attracted to certain jobs, the work environments
then reflect this personality and can be clustered into six similar populations
(RIASEC)

Although each individual is made up of all six types, one type is usually dominant.
Most personalities tend to resemble up to three of the six personality factors.

Personalities can be matched with similar combinations of work environments

using a problem-solving approach.

The closer the match of personality to job, the greater the satisfaction
Holland‟s Career Typology takes a cognitive, problem solving approach to career
planning and this model has been extremely influential in vocational counselling.
It has been employed by popular assessment tools such as the Self-Directed
Search, Vocational Preference Inventory and the Strong Interest Inventory. It has
also resulted in practical resources like the Dictionary of Holland Occupational
Codes which applies Holland‟s codes to major occupations.

Super’s Life-Span/ Life-Space Theory: Donald Super believed that humans are
anything but static and that personal change is continuous. Super‟s Life-
Span/Life Space is a very comprehensive developmental model that attempts to
account for the various important influences on a person as they experience
different life roles and various life stages. Here are some of Super‟s main tenets:
Every individual has potential. People have skills and talents that they develop
through different life roles making them capable of a variety of tasks and
numerous occupations.

In making a vocational choice, an individual is expressing his or her

understanding of self; his or her self-concept. People seek career satisfaction
through work roles in which they can express themselves and implement and
develop their self-concept. Self-knowledge is key to career choice and job
satisfaction.

Career development is life long and occurs throughout five major life stages:
Growth, Exploration, Establishment, Maintenance and Disengagement. Each stage
has a unique set of career development tasks and accounts for the changes and
decisions that people make from career entry to retirement.

These five stages are not just chronological. People cycle through each of these
stages when they go through career transitions.

People play different roles throughout their lives including the role of “worker.” Job
satisfaction increases when a person„s self-concept includes a view of the working-
self as being integrated with their other life roles.

Super‟s theory has greatly influenced how we look at career practices.

Understanding the ages and related stages of career development assists
practitioners to identify where clients are in the career development continuum
and suggest appropriate career related goals and activities. It also underscores the
necessity to examine career development within the larger context of an
individual‟s roles and life style and how to achieve a life/work balance.

Krumboltz’s Social Learning Theory of Career Choice: John D. Krumboltz

developed a theory of career decision making and development based on social
learning. Career decisions are the product of an uncountable number of learning
experiences made possible by encounters with the people, institutions and events
in a person's particular environment. In other words people choose their careers
based on what they have learned. Krumboltz proposed that:
The four main factors that influence career choice are genetic influences,
environmental conditions and events, learning experiences and task approach
skills (e.g., self-observation, goal setting and information seeking).

The consequences of these factors and most particularly learning experiences lead
people to develop beliefs about the nature of careers and their role in life (self-
observational generalizations). These beliefs, whether realistic or not, influence
career choices and work related behaviour.

Learning experiences, especially observational learning stemming from significant

role models (e.g., parents, teachers, heroes), have a powerful influence on career
decisions, making some occupations more attractive than others.

Positive modelling, reward and reinforcement will likely lead to the development of
appropriate career planning skills and career behaviour.

Krumboltz saw his theory as (1) a way of explaining the origin of career choice and
(2) a guide to how career practitioners might tackle career related problems. The
practitioner starts with understanding how a client came to their career related
view of themselves and the world and what is limiting or problematic about this
view. Once this has been established, the practitioner and client identify what
career relevant learning experiences, modeling or skill building will help them
reframe their view. Using Krumboltz‟s approach a practitioner plays a major role in
dealing with all career problems, not just occupational selection.
Constructivist Theory/Models of Career Development: Constructivist Theory of
Career Development is related to existential theory and is more a philosophical
framework within which career counselling can be done. Two thinkers associated
with this approach are M.L. Savickas and Vance Peavy. Constructivist career
development is based on the concepts of “constructivism” which include the
following:

There are no fixed meanings or realities in the world, there are multiple meanings
and multiple realities. Individuals create or construct their own meaning/reality of
the world through the experiences they have.

People “construct” themselves and the world around them through the
interpretations they make and the actions they take. These “constructs” or
perceptions of events may be useful or may be misleading.

Individuals differ from each other in their construction of events. Two people may
participate in the same or similar event and have very different perceptions of the
experience.

People are self-organizing and meaning-makers. Their lives are ever evolving
stories that are under constant revision. An individual may choose to develop “new
constructs” or write new ”stories“ in their life.

To be an empowered or fulfilled person requires critical reflection of the

assumptions that account for our daily decisions and actions.

The constructivist career counselling approach is generally about life planning.

The search for meaningful work is connected to constructivism‟s emphasis on
deriving meaning from personal experience. To have meaningful careers,
individuals need to reflect on their life experiences and the resulting “constructs”
they may hold about life/work/self. The client and practitioner work towards an
awareness and openness of new constructs of one‟s life/work/self that can provide
the basis for meaning. Interventions include working directly with the client‟s life
experience and the use of meaning making processes such as narrative, metaphor,
mapping and critical reflection.

CAREER PLANNING –
AN ESSENTIAL COMPONENT OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

The current economic context, marked by increased competition, integration in the

European Union and especially the need to maintain competitive advantage in an
increasingly uncertain business environment, have led to the introduction and the
deployment of human resources activities until recently neglected. Thus, more
companies in Romania have started to develop and implement organized planning
and career development systems of employees.
In human resource management, career planning aims to identify needs,
aspirations and opportunities for individuals‟ career and the implementation of
developing human resources programs to support that career. According to Edgar
Schein career planning (Manolescu, 2003) is a continuous process of discovery in
which an individual slow develops his own occupational concept as a result of
skills or abilities, needs, motivations and aspirations of his own value system .
Career planning is seen as a very systematic and comprehensive process of
targeting career development and implementation of strategies, self assessment
and analysis of opportunities and evaluate the results.

The career planning process involves both the organization and the individual
responsibility. Thus, the individuals must identify their aspirations and abilities,
and through assessment and counseling to understand their needs of training and
development; the organization needs to identify its needs and opportunities, to
plan its employees and to ensure its staff the necessary information and
appropriate training for career development.

Therefore, career planning (Popescu Neveanu, 2003) must link individual needs
and aspirations with organizational needs and opportunities, evaluating, advising
and informing its staff on career planning, individual development efforts with
training and development programs. Most often this match is not done, the
organizations paying a differential attention to its employees, planning career of
the high performance individuals with greater opportunities for promotion and not
taking into account the performance potential employees.

The issues to be considered in the planning of career are:

• organization members should be recognized and treated as individuals with
needs, desires and unique skills;
• individuals are more motivated in an organization that meci their
aspirations;
• individuals may develop, change and discover new courses of action if they
are shown exactly the opportunities or if they are encouraged and guided.

The specialized literature recommend that career counseling activities should be

introduced for all the employees, as a formalized activity of the human resources
department. Creating a special service for career counseling, consists of
specialists with psychosocial and / or managerial trening, who knows both
individuals and organizations needs, would lead to a better alignment between the
individuals needs of fullfiment and organization objectives.

According to the experts in human resources management (Mathis et al., 1997)

are the following models of career planning:

- „chance and luck” model. This model is that employee, to get the desired
position, is based only on luck. He must be persevering and always be in place at
the right time.
- „organization knows best” model. The model is based on the fact that the
employee is moved from one job to another according to the needs. This model is
supported mainly by young employees, who are dependent on adults forall the
views, and less than adults employees.
- „self – oriented” model. This model provides importance to the individuals;
the employees are establishing their own development during their career, while
having assistance too.

There are two approaches to career planning (Manolescu, 2003)), depending on the
emphasis on the needs of the organization or on the individual objectives:

A) THE ORGANIZATION CENTERED PLANNING SYSTEM WHICH AIMS:

• the development of Human Resource needs;
• to improve the quality of human resources to increase productivity;
• defining career paths;
• individual potential of job evaluation;
• harmonization of organizational and career needs;
• career counseling of work and life quality;
• audit and control of the planning and career development system.

B) THE PERSON CENTERED PLANNING SYSTEM WHICH AIMS:

• to identify the potential, skills and interests of the individual;
• to identify the purposes of his life and his career goals;
• to develop a written plan to achieve individual goals;
• researching or seeking and obtaining the best career start;
• to communicate the career plan directly to individual by his manager;
• request career guidance;
• internal and external opportunities‟ assessment;
• request mentor or sponsor support;
• promote their self image or recognition of their own qualities.

EMPLOYEES’ CAREER PLANNING RESPONSIBILITY

An important aspect of career planning is to establish the extent to which the two
parties (individuals and organizations) are responsible in this process. On one
hand, the individual is responsible for its development along the stages of his life
and, secondly, the organization involved in planning and development of career
helps to improve the organizational environment and enhance employee
satisfaction at work.

INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY ON CAREER PLANNING

According to the theory and practice of management, the career planning process
focuses particularly on individual skills, abilities, needs or aspirations. Given all
this, the individual will create a basic information necessary to ensure
preparedness for a possible promotion.
Individual career planning (Zlate, 2004) can be defined as all actions of self
assessment, exploration of opportunities, establishing goals etc., designed to help
the individual to make informed choices and changes about career. It is a complex
action that requires systematic and careful thinking in formulating short and long
term objectives.

Career planning is based, therefore, on the evaluation of individual skills, interests

and motivation, on the analysis of organizational opportunities, setting goals for
their careers and develop a strategy to achieve those goals.

Individual career planning ((Zlate, 2004)) can browse through five steps:
1. Self assessment is the collection of information about yourself (values,
interests, skills), continuous assessment and reporting to others;
2. Exploring opportunities involves gathering information about existing
opportunities within but also outside organizations (training and other
development methods);
3. Making decisions and setting goals on short and long term for training
requirements, change of job / department etc.
4. Planning consists of determining ways and means of achieving goals,
ordering their actions to achieve them, considering its consequences, setting
deadlines and resource requirements
5. Pursuit of achivement goals, action by the individual accounts for his
successes and failures and make decisions to retain or change career course.
Individual perspective on career (Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development - CIPD, 2005) is determined by the status of the individual
professional and personal life, age, family circumstances, financial expectations,
desired lifestyle, etc. Some individuals are hoping to be promoted to a senior
position within an organization, others want to take a new job in another
organization, accepting new and different responsibilities by investing in
developing new skills and acquiring new abillities, reducing or increasing the
number of work hours, or looking for jobs with a flexible working schedule. All
these aspects are covered by the following synthetic scheme:

ORGANIZATIONAL RESPONSABILITY ON CAREER PLANNING

To be viable, on short-term, or to maintain competitive advantage, in the long

term, organizations must match employees with appropriate skills in the right
positions. The type and skills of the employees are different, depending on the
scope of the firm, economic sector, specific technology, consumer characteristics,
etc.. Peculiarities of organization affects the jobs structure, the types of recruited
employees for each job and the development ways on the job. Many employers
offer numerous promote opportunities to certain types of positions (especially
those involving unique skills to give value to the organization) and limited
opportunities for others.
Organizational career planning has a critical role in attracting, developing and
maintaining the staff. Without organization‟s involvement in establishing,
supporting and strengthening the careers of its employees it can not achieve the
expected results at both organizational and individual level.

THE ORGANIZATIONAL CAREER PLANNING SYSTEM

Due to numerous changes manifested in the lives of individuals and organizations,

the idea of developing a fixed career trajectory has become somewhat outdated
because fewer are those who plan on long term. Careers are shorter and more
unstable, job security is reducing and the short-term employment becomes
more common. Most individuals are expected to change several jobs throughout
their working lives and to participate in a variety of projects.

The reduced number of jobs available within organizations and restrict managerial
levels have led to changes in the traditional route to an organizational career
development. There are fewer promotion opportunities so that employees are
keeping the same job on longer periods before being promoted. The traditional
career path involved an upward mobility, giving to the employees the certainty of
an well- defined promote pathways. Currently, the emphasis is on job rotation,
multiple skills development and sideways promotion.

Designing and implementing a career planning system is useful to the

organizations for identifying the employees development needs and matching them
to the business needs.

The career planning system contribute to increased employees professional

satisfaction because it helps them to identify and take positions consistent with
their objectives and plans. From the perspective of the company, career planning
system reduces the needed time to fill the vacancies, help succession planning
(preparing employees for filling positions that became vacant following staff
turnover or retirement), identify employees with management potential and ensure
to all employees the opportunity to identify career goals and develop plans to
achieve them.

The Main Components Of Career Management System

Career planning systems differ in terms of complexity and of emphasis on certain

components of it. However, all career planning systems include the following
components:

1. Self assessment assists employees in setting goals, values, skills and

behavioral trends. Psychological tests are used as „Inventory goals Strong
– Campbell” (it helps employees to identify occupational and professional goals)
and „self quest” (it identify the employee‟ preferences for different working
environments - sales, consulting, etc.) which contributes to identify the level of
emphasis on work and leisure. Career counselors are often used to assist
employees in self-evaluation process and in interpreting test results.
2. Reality check: the employees are informed on how the company assess their
skills and knowledge and what place they took on company plans (eg
opportunities for promotion, lateral moves). Usually, this information is provided
by the direct managers in the performance evaluation process; the discussion on
career development can take place separately.
3. Setting goals: Employees establish the short and long term career objectives
that are related to concerned professional positions, the necessary level of
competence, setting steps forward, learning new skills. These objectives are
discussed with the manager and recorded in the individual development plan.
4. Planning activities: during this phase, the employees determine how to
achieve short and long term career goals. These plans may include attending
lectures and seminars, applications to fill vacancies within the company or
participating in interviews.

THE ROLES OF THE EMPLOYEES, MANAGERS AND ORGANIZATION IN

CAREER PLANNING

The employees, managers and organizations (Hollenbeck, et al., 2008) share the
responsibility for career planning.

The Employee’s Role

Regardless of the operating organization, the individuals must be actively involved

in managing their careers, motivated of its beneficial effects on welfare (the
economic and psychological standpoint) (George, et al., 2007).

- The economic standpoint – at a basic level, the work provides an income to

the individuals to ensure their existence and their families and to satisfy other
interests, hobbies and recreation; career opportunities are a source of extrinsic
motivation (external) for employees.
- The psychological standpoint – as a source of spiritual comfort, the work
provides a sense of accomplishment and gives a meaning to the individual
existence. Psychologically, career opportunities are an important source of
intrinsic motivation (internal) for employees.

The Psychological Contract consists of all the expectations that employers and
their employees have from each other. In general, the psychological contract
emphasizes that the organization will offer job security and promotion
opportunities if the employee remain in the company and maintain a high level of
professional performance. However, due to technological change, competition and
structural social, psychological contract between employees and organizations has
changed. The organizations can no longer offer job security and promotion
opportunities and employees are more interested in a job that offers challenges,
diversity and opportunity to be creative. The employees are still interested in job
security even if they realize that having a job within the same company
throughout working life is an unrealistic goal.

The new psychological contract suggests that employees can become more
valuable to employers by taking responsibility for their career planning.

The organizations which have structured career planning systems expects from
their employees to take responsibility for planning their own careers. Some
of it provide to the employees a crash course to familiarize them with the
organization‟s specific career system; the participation is voluntary and employees
are doing their self assessment, identify their career goals and prepare their action
plans. Follows that, after a discussion with team manager, to work towards
reaching the targets. Other organizations develop and make available to employees
a planning guide which guides the development stages of self-assessment, target
setting, development planning and action plan.

Regardless of the complexity of the career planning system, employees should take
the following actions:
- to take the initiative in the sense of requiring feedback from peers and chiefs
regarding the strengths and weaknesses of their skills;
- to identify the stage of career development and the development needs;
- to seize as many opportunities to learn (about sales, product design etc.).;
- to interact with employees from different work groups within and outside the
organization (eg professional associations, project teams).

The Manager’s Role

Regardless of the career planning system type in the organization, managers have
a key role in its planning process. Generally, the employees ask for advice on
career to their direct managers because they are the ones that determine the level
of training and assess their ability to promote. However, the managers are the
main source of information on job vacancies, training courses and other
development opportunities. Unfortunately, many managers are reluctant to engage
in the employees‟s career planning activities because they do not feel prepared to
answer questions related to their career, have a limited time allocated for these
activities or they are not able to relate to a full understanding of their needs. To
help the employees in this process, managers must demonstrate effectiveness in
four parts: a coach, evaluator, counselor and referral agent. The success of
manager- employee discussion about career (Otte, et al., 1992) is based on
achieving the following aspects:

The managers need to form a complete picture of the employee‟s work-

related purposes and goals;
The manager and the employee agree on the next steps for development;
The employee understands the manager's perception of his performance,
development needs and career options;
 The manager and the employee agree on how the employee‟ needs are
satisfied with the current job;
The manager identify the resources to help the employee to achieve the
committed objectives set out in their discussion.

A key role of a manager (Zeus et al., 2008) within an organization is to provide

employees with career development coaching. The purpose of this type of coaching
is to help employees to consider various career options and make decisions for
them. In return, the organization will benefit from identifying the employee's
career prospects, thereby could plan and provide the opportunities to achive their
goals. Outside the manager, the coaching could be provided by the human
resources professionals within the organization.The coach manager can help the
employees to assume different roles within the organization such as: a coach for
the new employees, mentoring for potential successors, or leadership teams or
committees. Thus, individuals perform their generative task: they share to others
what they know, giving themselves what they received, thus showing care for the
next generation.

One of the difficulties created by the flattening of career and lateral transfers is
that the employee status is determined rather by the job, title, number of
promotions and salary, and less by the performance, expertise, entrepreneurial
and team spirit. Redefining the prestige and held position will encourage the
employees to remain in the organization and not to seek a job elsewhere or
preferment.

The specific items of the manager's role in career counseling are:

• To design and to implement systems and standards of performance
assessment: the role of helping to clarify the organization‟ opportunities to develop
and discuss options and directions for future development organization that
employees can prepare and adapt to new requirements;
• Analyzing current and future career plans;
• Setting Goals: manager occupies a unique position to assess and discuss
the employee's dedication to his professional goals. Manager may refer the
employee to assess his motivations and choices regarding career, getting actively
involved in setting career goals and planning actions;
• Systematic encouragement and support of staff during the implementation
of the agreed strategies for career;
• Working with employees who feel stressed or unhappy at work:
interpersonal problems of the work place (eg. disputes with colleagues or other
team members) may adversely affect one's performance. Coaching to develop
communication skills and to find ways of conflict resolution can improve
performance and it can keep the employee on his career path.

The Organization’s Role

The organizations are responsible for providing the necessary resources to be

successful in the employees‟ career planning. These resources include:
- Career workshops: seminars on various topics (how does the system of
career planning, self assessment or setting goals);
- Career centers or information systems (or databases places where / from
where the employees can learn about job openings or training programs);
- Career planning guides (printed matter for guidance the staff witch contain
exercises, discussion and advice on career planning);
- Career counseling (advice by a specialized professional counselor in
assisting the employees interested in career planning);
- Career paths (directions) (planning job stages, identifying the skills needed
to advance within the same family of channels such as wireless promoting a
technical professional position in a managerial position).

The organization must monitor the career planning system to ensure that both
managers and employees use it properly and especially to assess how it is useful
in achieving its business objectives (eg. reducing the period of coverage vacant
posts).

CONCLUSIONS

Restructuring of the organizations in the current crisis (marked by mergers,

layoffs and restrictions on activity) and change their strategies make career
planning a very important process for both employees and employers.

From the company perspective, the failure to motivate the employees by planning
their careers can lead to hinder the process of filling vacant posts, a decrease of
the staff involvement and an inappropriate use of the money allocated to training
and development programs. From the employees‟ perspective, the lack of career
planning can lead to frustration, feelings of not being appreciated by the company
and non identifying the right position leads to the need of a job change and / or
the company (particularly in the current crisis).

Career planning is effective when the organizations use fully the skills and
knowledge of their employees and they are motivated to achieve maximum
performance and be satisfied with their work, which helps the organization to
achieve its objectives. The frequent manifestation of layoffs, especially in the
current crisis, requires that employees demonstrate certain skills and
competencies that prove indispensable to the actual or potential employers.