Career Management & Work/Life Integration: Using Self-Assessment to Navigate Contemporary Careers
Career Management & Work/Life Integration: Using Self-Assessment to Navigate Contemporary Careers is a comprehensive, easy-to-follow guide to managing contemporary careers. Although grounded in theory, the book also provides an extensive set of exercises and activities that can guide career management over the lifespan. Authors Brad Harrington and Douglas T. Hall offer a highly useful self-assessment guide for students and other individuals who want to deal with the challenge of...
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Career Management & Work/Life Integration: Using Self-Assessment to Navigate Contemporary Careers is a comprehensive, easy-to-follow guide to managing contemporary careers. Although grounded in theory, the book also provides an extensive set of exercises and activities that can guide career management over the lifespan. Authors Brad Harrington and Douglas T. Hall offer a highly useful self-assessment guide for students and other individuals who want to deal with the challenge of succeeding in a meaningful career while living a happy, well-balanced life.
Preface ixAcknowledgments xiiiUnderstanding the New Career 1Three Career Cases 1The Barnes Family 1Helen Casey 2The Smith Family 3The Changing Landscape of Careers 4The Changing Nature of Families 8The New Careers 9Our Career and Work-Life Model 11The Self-Assessment Process 15The Basic Areas of Self-Assessment 16Reflecting on the Past 17Identity as a Core Competence 21Clarifying Your Values 24Understanding Your Interests and Passions 29Lifestyle 32Understanding Your Life Goals and Personal Vision 35Skill Assessment 37Summary 44Integrating Your Self-Assessment and Developing Implications 47Integrating Your Self-Assessment 47Developing Themes From Your Data 50Coding Your Data 51Grouping Your Data 52Assigning Tentative Themes 53Constructing the Final Themes With Supporting Data 53Sample Themes 54Developing Career and Work-Life Implications 57Summary 60Finding Ideal Work 61Job Loss 63Assessing the Labor Market 66Identifying the Right Opportunities for You 68Job Search Tools 71References 71Resumes 73Starting a Professional Portfolio 74Cover Letters 75Conducting the Job Search 76Networking and the Job Search 77Informational Interviews 83Guidelines for Conducting an Informational Interview 84Questions to Ask 85Identifying the Ideal Employer 87Special Challenges and Tips for International Students Who Want to Work in the United States 90Career Decision Making 92Summary 94Career Development Strategies 97Organizational Career Paths 102From Career Ladders to Career Lattices 103Vertical Careers and Organizational Advancement 105Managing Up 106Alternative Career Paths-Salzman's Typology 109Backtrackers 111Plateauers 111Career Shifters 112Self-Employers 113Urban Escapees 114The Portfolio Career 115Ongoing Development 116Organizational Career Systems 121International Assignments 124Financial Considerations 126Summary 130Work and Family 133Men and Women, Families and Work 134Dual-Career Couples 136Dual-Career Families 141Sources of Stress 142Role Conflict 143Summary 152Workplace Flexibility 153Flexible Work Arrangements 154Flextime 155Compressed Work Week 157Part-Time and Reduced-Load Work 158Job Sharing 161Telecommuting 164Leaves 170Sabbaticals 171Other Elements of the Family-Friendly Workplace 172Family-Friendly Workplace Culture 174The Dark Side of Flexible Work Arrangements 176Summary 177Career Development Over the Lifespan 179Lifespan Development: Are Career and Life Stages Still Relevant Today? 180Adult Life Stages 181Gender and Life Stages 184A New Model for Middle and Later Years: Learning Cycles 185The Second (or Third or Fourth) Career 188Protean Careers and Older Workers 190How Do We Tap the Potential of Older Workers? 194Use Developmental Relationships 194Opt for New and Varied Job Experience 195Improve Person-Job Brokering 195Use Information Technology 196Retirement 197How Do I Want to Design My Life for the Third Phase? 198Financial Planning and Careers in Later Life 199Summarizing Careers Over the Lifespan 201Book Summary 201Standards of Excellence Index 205Bibliography 211Index 223About the Authors 233
\ Newsletter"Back around the turn of the century, I was on the Alliance for Work-Life Progress board, and some of the board members found their jobs and offices being downsized as a fairly lengthy recession set in. I have been in touch with many of these folks since then, and they have all done well, but mainly by changing careers. What they really needed was Career Management and Work-Life Integration, by Brad Harrington and Douglas Hall (2007). As the authors note, job ladders inside of corporations (and job security) are largely a thing of the past. For young or mature adults, the implications of that shift are enormous. Specializing can be dangerous, and making yourself indispensable may not be a great idea. So individual career planning becomes on one level more difficult and less useful because the unexpected is always just around the corner, but on another level far more important if you don't want to end up stuck doing work you don't like for a company you like even less... And this really is a work-family book, which is anything but surprising once you take in the implications of modern careers: the difficulties of navigating contemporary careers are heavily compounded for modern families, where dual-earners are the norm, and fathers as well as mothers expect to devote substantial time to children and, increasingly, elderly parents and relatives. And corporate work-life policies become important for a reason that is often downplayed: attracting talent. My reading of most of the literature on the business case for work-life is that it tends to emphasize talent retention. But that may be the wrong angle if the problem is getting the right people, and planning on fairly short 'career' duration. I should mention that much of the book is very much practical, with exercises designed to draw out the reader's values, aspirations, history, and family situation in order to make sense of — and plan for — the future. I highly recommend it for that practical purposes, but genuinely enjoyed it as a contribution to rethinking the way work & family will play out in the future. Great stuff!” — Bob Drago\ \ \ \ \ Business India"Its key features develop a bridge between theory and application, offering a rigorous self-assessment process and providing a more thorough experiential view than most existing books. "— Johnson Thomas\ \ \ Newsletter"Back around the turn of the century, I was on the Alliance for Work-Life Progress board, and some of the board members found their jobs and offices being downsized as a fairly lengthy recession set in. I have been in touch with many of these folks since then, and they have all done well, but mainly by changing careers. What they really needed was Career Management and Work-Life Integration, by Brad Harrington and Douglas Hall (2007). As the authors note, job ladders inside of corporations (and job security) are largely a thing of the past. For young or mature adults, the implications of that shift are enormous. Specializing can be dangerous, and making yourself indispensable may not be a great idea. So individual career planning becomes on one level more difficult and less useful because the unexpected is always just around the corner, but on another level far more important if you don't want to end up stuck doing work you don't like for a company you like even less... And this really is a work-family book, which is anything but surprising once you take in the implications of modern careers: the difficulties of navigating contemporary careers are heavily compounded for modern families, where dual-earners are the norm, and fathers as well as mothers expect to devote substantial time to children and, increasingly, elderly parents and relatives. And corporate work-life policies become important for a reason that is often downplayed: attracting talent. My reading of most of the literature on the business case for work-life is that it tends to emphasize talent retention. But that may be the wrong angle if the problem is getting the right people, and planning on fairly short 'career' duration. I should mention that much of the book is very much practical, with exercises designed to draw out the reader's values, aspirations, history, and family situation in order to make sense of — and plan for — the future. I highly recommend it for that practical purposes, but genuinely enjoyed it as a contribution to rethinking the way work & family will play out in the future. Great stuff!”\ \ \ \ \ Business India"Its key features develop a bridge between theory and application, offering a rigorous self-assessment process and providing a more thorough experiential view than most existing books."\ \
