Definition of Career

Meaning of Career

Career is a continuous process. By career, a person gets satisfaction, stability, and discipline in his/her life.

There are two ways of viewing a career. One view is,

• A career as a structural property of an occupation or an organization. For example, one could think of a career in law as a sequence of positions held by a typical or “idea” practitioner of the occupation; law student, law clerk, junior member of law firm, senior member, judge, and retirement . A career could also be seen as a mobility path within a single organization, as the following path in a marketing function illustrates; sales representative, product manager, marketing manager, region marketing manager, and divisional vice president marketing.
• Other view is a career as a property of an individual rather than an occupation or an organization. Because almost everyone accumulates a unique series of jobs, positions, experiences, this view acknowledges that each person in effect, pursues a unique career. Even within this individual perspective, however, several different definitions of career have appeared over the years, each reflecting a certain theme embodied in the meaning of a career.

Douglus T.Hall stated that, “the career is the individually perceived sequence of attitudes and behaviors associated with work related experiences and activities over the span of the person’s life”. Ricky W. Griffin stated, “a person’s career is the set of work related experiences, behaviors, and attitudes encountered throughout working life”.

So, career is a continuous process, by this process a person try to gets an achievement in life. And career included economical capabilities, experiences, skills, and honor.   

Career Management:

Career management has been defined in a number of ways. We view career management as a process by which individuals develop, implement, and monitor career goals and strategies.

Career management is an individual- not an organizational activity. Individuals will need to develop a set of career competencies that enable them to develop insight into themselves and their environment so they can navigate their increasingly unpredictable and chaotic careers.

Need to Understand Career Management:

An understanding of career management is important in two aspects. First, it can help individuals manage their careers more effectively. Second, organizations can profit from understanding the career decisions and dilemmas that confront their employees.

Individual Perspective: From an individual’s point of view, effective career management is particularly important in the light of the turbulent economic, technological, and cultural environment. In rapidly changing and uncertain times, career success and satisfaction will most likely be achieved by individuals who understand themselves, know how to detect changes in the environment, create opportunities for themselves, and learn from their mistakes all elements of effective career management.

Organizational Perspective:  As indicated in the preceding section, individuals who define career success in broad terms and who feel the need to combine different parts of their lives into a satisfying life style have a real need to understand the nature of careers and to manage their careers actively. Organization also has incentives for understanding careers. In fact, an organization’s ability to manage its human resources effectively depends on how well it understands its employee’s career needs and helps them engage in effective career management.

Career Development:

Career development is an ongoing process by which individual’s progress through a series of stages, each of which is characterized by a relatively unique set of is characterized by a relatively unique set of issues, themes, or tasks.

Stage of Career:

1. Preparation
2. Entrance
3. Mid Career
4. Late Career
5. Disengagement

Preparation: The preparation stage is the pre-employment stage, where in the individuals are in their mid-twenties and enter from their college life to the work environment. This stage individually has chosen a work on the basis of the direction shown by parents, friends, family, and teachers. At this stage several expectation about the work are created may be the unrealistic or fantasies beliefs about the work.

Entrance: At this stage, individually entered the work and experiences the culture first job. Here, all the expectations and fantasies come to end and have to face the reality of life. This stage is also learning stage. A person gathered more information from different angel.

Mid- Career: At this stage, the individual is no longer considered to be a fresher and his mistakes are taken by the senior management. This stage covers age period of 30-45 years. This stage, an employee must evaluate his or her current career position. Whether he is advancing, or has stabilized, or has started to decline.

Late- Career: At this stage, an individual reaches to a particular position in the organization, on the basis of his career graph which is characterized by growth. This stage a person considered to be having the pleasant experience with the work. An individual becomes the mentor and guide others on basis his experiences. 

Decline: This is the last stage of Career. This stage, an individual has to step out of his work or get a retirement from his official commitments. Decline stage is very difficult stage for a person, because this stage an individual has to leave from job or life activities. Then the person is passing time very difficult matter.

Finally, every individual passes through these five stages of career development as they move along their life cycle.

Feature of career:

1. Entering into working life
2. A person established in life
3. Expand duty and economical capability
4. Continuous process
5. Important decision and step for life
6. Career selection affected by family decision, education, past event in life.