Each of us, when we turn our attention to a field, wanting to practice a certain profession, we implicitly think about our career. This is seen as one's own professional development in relation to one's entire working life. In addition to individual development, career can be seen from three aspects: economic, sociological and psychological. From an economic point of view, career is a succession of professional positions held by a person. Sociologically, it is seen as a succession of roles, each role being the basis for the next. Psychologically, career choice and career success are a function of an individual's skills, interests, values, needs, previous experience and aspirations.
Career orientation
According to Holland's theory, career orientation should be based on one of the individual's personality patterns;
1. Conventional people largely prefer organised activities, subject to internal rules and procedures. These are usually activities involving the organisation of written or numerical information, analyses using algorithms and generally standard procedures that have been precisely defined in advance. These people are conformist, orderly, efficient and practical but lack imagination and creativity.
2. Artistic people are the complete opposite of conventional people, preferring non-systematic activities involving expressive forms of writing and verbal or visual expression. Most of them are imaginative, intuitive, independent, but at the same time they are messy, emotional, impractical.
3. Investigative people are oriented towards predominantly intellectual activities, which involve solving theoretical problems and situations, explaining the causes and nature of phenomena. They prefer to deal with abstract issues in their professional world, they are in a constant search for truth. They prefer abstract ideas, less concrete tasks and have an aptitude for mathematical and scientific fields;
4. Realists always engage in physical manipulation of objects, showing spontaneity, stability and practicality. But they are shy, conformist and lacking in intuition.
5. Social type people are the opposite of realists. They engage in activities that involve informing, helping, developing others. They are communicative, friendly, kind, diplomatic and therefore unlikely to be comfortable in orderly, systematic professional environments with rigid rules and structured, predictable activities.
6. Entrepreneurs are people who prefer teamwork, but tend to control and manage their colleagues while being focused on organisational and economic goals. Positive aspects include: self-confidence, ambition, energy, extroversion. The less pleasant side is dominance, thirst for power and impulsiveness.
Career management objectives
Career management is a point of interest for both employee and employer. It is a process of designing and implementing goals, strategies and plans that enable the organisation to meet its human resource needs and individuals to meet their career goals.
According to the Americans, career management is conducted on two distinct levels: organisational career planning which aims to integrate short- and long-term human resource needs and develop an individual career plan, and individual career planning based on assessing personal capabilities, skills and interests, recording data on organisational opportunities, setting career goals and developing a strategy for achieving them.
As main objectives in career management we can distinguish:
- supporting an appropriate career development strategy that is in line with the nature of the work performed, as well as individual and organisational needs and possibilities;
- merging individual needs and goals into organisational needs and goals;
- meeting organisational needs and enhancing the organisation's positive image by recognising the training and development needs of employees;
- recognising and retaining the best employees or those with definite professional potential by meeting short and long-term personal needs and aspirations;
- drawing up career plans or introducing special promotion schemes for employees who are competent but for whom suitable posts are not available;
- guiding and supporting competent employees to achieve personal goals in line with their potential, needs and aspirations and their contribution to the organisation;
- helping employees to identify the skills and qualities needed for both current and future jobs;
- providing the necessary training and development for employees to enable them to cope with any level of responsibility, provided they have the potential or capacity to achieve it;
- finding and applying career development pathways to guide individuals in as many directions as possible;
- professional incentives for employees who are experiencing career stagnation or plateauing;
- to achieve mutual benefits for both the organisation and its employees.
Career stages
Career stages can be defined as general patterns of progress, key obligations and changes in the activities undertaken by an individual throughout their working life.
These successive stages are:
- exploration,
- stabilisation,
- advancement,
- upkeep,
- end of career.
In the first, exploitative phase, each individual is faced with translating the visions formed in adolescence into the real world. This is the period of experimentation, a time when talents, skills, interests and values are discovered and developed. It is an important moment in the formation of a professional identity and the choice of a field of activity.
Stabilisation is the stage in which the acquired notions are deepened, each seeking to improve in the chosen field following the exploration process.
Advancement and upkeep are a natural continuation of stabilization, each individual, by human nature, having the desire for self-improvement, moral and material benefits.
The end of one's career may represent a period of continuous growth in status and influence in the organisation, or a period spent at the highest level of responsibility and status.
Career strategies
Career management involves choosing strategies at an individual level, whereby each person anticipates problems that may arise in professional development and makes long-term plans.
Some of these strategies are:
- self-knowledge – it is important to make a careful analysis of your career orientation, your weaknesses/strengths, your place in the company;
- knowledge of the professional environment – knowing the environment, economic issues, competing companies, you can anticipate both unpleasant events and opportunities;
- maintaining the best possible professional reputation – means highlighting your skills and achievements, everything that makes you stand out, that demonstrates special qualities, the ability to invest and the capacity to complete projects;
- flexibility, availability, continuous training – means keeping track of the match between personal skills and those sought on the labour market, those that are easily transferable;
- documenting own achievements – means being able to provide evidence of what you have achieved, results and identifiable achievements are more valuable in the job market;
- preparing a contingency plan - it's important to always have an ace up your sleeve and always be ready to act;
- maintaining a comfortable professional and social status - keeping yourself in good financial and mental shape means always having a secure base, comfort and balance professionally and socially.
Sources:
http://robertda.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/managementul-carierei.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2896033/Managementul-carierei
http://mail.ubv.ro/~janeta.sirbu/MMC3_1.pdf
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