Introduction
Careers are considered person specific and are created by the individual’s choices that are made throughout one’s life. It is important to note that careers generally emerge from the close interplay that occurs between an individual and the environment (Cook et al., 2002). Career development is very important as it coffers one an opportunity to make a decision on what field to major into and deciding on lifetime career decision making.
Careers development presents one with a lifetime opportunity to be able to understand, learn and even develop the required skills, competencies and capabilities to engage successfully in life and career planning. Several theories have been put forward to explain the subject of career development, for instance, the Holland theory of career development. This essay seeks to analyze critically, the topic, career development.
Career Development Theories
The Holland theory of career choice holds when an individual decides to choose a career; they tend to prefer those jobs that will enable them to be around those people they consider to be like them. This theory is considered an excellent and a very vital example of trait theory. It is important to understand that we all have various unique characteristics and that all occupations have unique characteristics (Cook et al., 2002).
Therefore, an individual will select that working environment that will enable them to make use of their acquired skills and abilities. An individual behavior will be determined by the interaction that will take place on the environment and the individual’s personality. The theory states that there are six types of personalities including, realistic, social, and artistic enterprising, conventional and investigative.
Choosing the right career and work environment can be very complex and complicated sometimes since some of the careers sound boring and others interesting. My work placement internship program was in a law firm called, Horizon & Co law firm in the HR department. As an individual, I believe I would have better job satisfaction working in the HR field since I can work in the kind of job that fully matches the characteristics I hold.
The law firm environment is suitable for my career development to work in the HR field since it enabled me to utilize the skills and capabilities I acquired as an intern. To understand my type of personality I had to take a critical assessment instrument. In this law firm environment, I was working in the HR department, which I considered suitable for my type of personality, which is, enterprising, from the Holland theory about personality types.
I believe I am enterprising because I like to lead others and to persuade them. I had to understand in which ways I can perform best in my working place to have job satisfaction. Generally, I like to sell thing and ideas. I believe I am ambitious, very energetic and social and with this personality, I will start my own business shortly.
Generally, I prefer those types of occupations that tend to involve sales and people management. By understanding, my capabilities enabled me to make a lifetime career decision and exactly I wanted to major in. In addition to that, after fully understanding my weaknesses, qualities and strengths, I had to share with my family, friend to understand what they were feeling, and thinking about my decision to major in this field of career. I am a social person, I like communicating with others, and I believe this will set the pace towards achieving my dream career (Cook et al., 2002).
When we still young kids, most of us were thinking of becoming something in life or have a bigger job in future. Most of the kids were thinking of becoming, pilots, doctors, and a banker, but upon growing up, reaching these job positions will not be that easy. When I was 14 years old, I was a TV program’s presenter and was directed to believe that when I grow up I will be TV presenter but that was not the case. It is thus necessary if one wants to attain these job positions to have goals that will guide him or her and to work hard to accomplish these goals.
Arguably, my personal career development is a very vital journey in my life since it enabled me to attain my goals. Therefore, my working environment as an intern at Horizon & a company, law firm, I can achieve the best utilizing my capabilities and skills to the fullest to develop my career in the HR field after graduation. I am also able to gain job satisfaction working in this field because I am doing what pleases me and what I studied for the while in school.
Super’s development self-concept theory is another type of career developmental theory that is relevant to my career development as a HR. Vocational developmental is considered as a process of creating and implementing a self-concept that will enable me to grow and appreciate my career (Cook et al., 2002). Therefore, as the self-concept of an individual becomes significantly stable and more realistic, also the vocational choice and human behavior does so.
It is important to note that individuals tend to select those occupations that will allow them to express significantly their self-concept. My work satisfaction to work as a HR is significantly related to the degree that I have been able to adopt and implement myself concept. My career maturity entails my readiness to cope with the developmental tasks that takes place at a specific stage. The super’s idea I believe has provided me with gradual exposure to the HR concepts and my self-concept and this will help me as I develop my career.
Career Interventions
It is very important to have a career intervention that must be implemented in various stages that I believe assisted me a great deal. By attending career, fairs will enable me to meet some experienced professionals in my field of working (Cook et al., 2002). The career fair will raise my awareness and increase my basic understanding of ways to improve my career and ways to achieve my dream career and goals.
My major is a human resource, and I am looking forward to working in the private sector more because I like challenges. I was enticed to select human resource as my major by its numerous and very challenging nature of a law setting. The curriculum-based intervention is another intervention type that I will undertake field practices and projects as an intervention I believe will benefit me in my career while working as a human resource.
In this field practices, I would be able to learn some specific aspects of my occupation and ways to handle the emerging challenges and work pressure. It is very difficult for an individual to select her perfect career path since it is confusing to make a decision on the best career. Through career intervention, one stands a chance to understand some careers and ways to be successful in those careers and various ways of handling challenges. The idea of career intervention will address my occupational problems and challenges (Cook et al., 2002).
The work-based intervention, which entails interventions that are specifically designed to help promote an individual self-efficacy and job motivation. This will be very important to my career since it will offer a meaningful interaction an opportunity with the work sites within the society. It involves learning from seeing what others have done better, and it will take place when am still working as the human resource in the law firm where I am employed.
Career counseling as an approach to career intervention entails a trained career counselor and a client who is to be counseled. The counselor will employ the use of various methods that will enable me to make the right and an informed decision in career choice. Advising intervention will particularly provide direction to my career, find solutions to impediments and significantly will sustain planfulness about my future goal of opening my own business, which will entail opening beauty salon from my own savings (Cook et al, 2002). Planfulness in my career is very important because it sets the direction in which I should follow to achieve my long-term goals.
Career Development Strategies in local contexts
The performance factory referred to as, Perfact Service Academy, is considered one of the UAE’s leading institute of retail training. The organization was established in the year 2009 specifically as an arm for training firm. It is further regarded as the leading training firm in the entire of the Middle East. The company has the vision to be the best player in training services and to supply a highly qualified sales and service talent in the UAE to the retail sector. It also aims at becoming the UAE brand of choice in terms of excellent development of local talent.
The HR strategies employed by the Perfact Service Academy include the following, workforce planning, which entails a strategic planning of the entire workforce to be trained. Through planning for the workforce, the organization will be able to address their issues and develop them to be globally competitive and demanding in the job market. The other strategy is to have a planned program for succession in place, which entails the development of a better succession strategy. To increase the investment level in the department of training and development as a strategy entails fully equipping the department with resources that will enable them to offer their services adequately.
Lastly, to develop a system of performance evaluation for each staff within the Academy is another strategy. System performance evaluation will enable the management to understand the level of performance of their workforce. Performance evaluation will compare an individual performance against what is expected of her and then formulate ways to correct the challenges that may limit higher performance levels. Therefore, it is important to have a career development and planning organizations in place to help individuals and all the citizens at large in making the best decisions in their career choice and development.
Career Planning Practices in the Local and Global Contexts
The best way to accomplish any objective is to make realistic targets that one intends to achieve in a given period. The same tactics apply in career development and planning. For a person to develop his/her career, he must keep a target that is realistic and at the same time the target ought to be realistic. Keeping a realistic target makes a person identify what one needs to do to achieve the set targets. At the same time, the target list should be flexible and should be in line with the market demands. Therefore, for career development and planning, one has to have a target list that is achievable and at the same time flexible (Watts, 2011).
A current resume is important for anyone who is looking for a job or any person who is already in a stable employment, even though the latter always take this for granted. Current resume is important for career development and planning, because, first, it reminds a professional with the skills and the achievements, which are important for developing both long and short term goals in career development and planning.
The current resume also enables a professional to understand himself better, which is a key factor in career development. A professional needs to know his strengths and weakness to plan for his or her career planning and development (Watts, 2011). The resume is not only for highlighting skills and achievement that one has, but it also reflects the passion and the values of an individual, which are key to career development and planning. Having a current resume is also important because it boosts the confidence of a person. Therefore, any professional needs a current resume for his career planning and development.
The globe is transforming at an alarming rate, and the changes are coming with many challenges that individuals and organizations need to overcome. However, to overcome these challenges, organizations need those with excellent leadership skills. Therefore, a professional is required for different leadership styles. A professional with excellent leadership skills more likely to develop his career faster because he will be able to provide solutions to many challenges ailing an organization. Therefore, for career development and planning, a profession must develop his leadership skills. Organizations should also strive to develop different leadership styles among their employees.
Networking is key in career development and planning. Research has shown that about 60% to 85% of jobs and other career opportunities are found through networking. Therefore, it is necessary for a professional to create a network of people whom they share the same career and ambition with. Networking provides a chance of opening hidden opportunities because the most information in organizations is always internal, which include even job advertisements and other career opportunities.
Networking enables a profession to learn about new trends in his area of profession, new opportunities, training programs that are important for career development and the new leaders in the field that might be of help for one’s career development and planning. Also, networking enables a professional to find solutions to some of the problems he might be facing in the workplace. Therefore, for career development and planning, a professional needs to develop and expand the network.
Career development and planning needs the identification and building expertise. One of the best ways of building and developing expertise is through effective training, which can be at individual or organization level. But to a greater extent, building expertise starts at an individual level where a professional takes a personal initiative of developing the career.
The first step of building expertise is taking part in professional activities like attending professional programs, speaking at professional forums and writing articles regarding issues in one’s line of profession. However, a professional must first identify the expertise before building it. For career development and planning, therefore, a professional must identify and build the expertise. Developing expertise enables one to be an authority in the chosen field, which accelerates career development of an individual.
Self-analysis
After self-assessment, I was able to identify my strengths and weaknesses. Even though the process of self-assessment was quite tedious, it was necessary for my career development and planning. In the five categories of self-assessment, I came up with areas I am weak on and which I need to work on for my career development. Therefore, I have identified the knowledge, skills and abilities that I need to strengthen as discussed below.
I realized that I am neither an expert nor a nor a confident speaker when it comes to presentation skills. From the assessment, I realized that I cannot confidently address a large group of strangers on many subjects. Unfortunately, I also realized that I cannot also address a small group of people with the confidence and competency that it deserves on various subjects. However, I realized from the assessment that I have the ability and skills to address my peers competently, with a lot of confidence on a lot of issues. This disturbed me because will not only address my peers in my career line.
Therefore, I took the first step of being an expert listener who can listen and talk to groups of strangers confidently and competently on some subjects. To realize this objective, I have decided to practice with both friends and families regarding my presentation and listening skills. To assess my progress, I have decided to defend my BUS 4353 orally with the determination of getting an A on the subject. This should take six months.
Negotiation is key in any organizations as there are many deals that organizations engage with other stakeholders. Negotiations are also important at a personal level because it will enable me to negotiate with my clients and employers. However, I realized that I am not so good in negotiation since I am only able to negotiate and convince only some people, especially my peers.
This meant that I still lack some confidence in negotiating and convincing people who are not my peers. I have therefore decided to boost my confidence in negotiation, which will enable me to confidently and competently negotiate with almost all groups of people and be able to convince them as well. This I will do by attending seminars on how to improve negotiations. I will assess my progress by negotiating with Emirates Airline on my salary, and I expect a better salary out of the negotiation.
I face problems on a daily basis that needs a timely solution. This calls for proper problem-solving skills. However, from the self-assessment, I realized that I can only solve some problems, but not all problems, which is a great challenge because failure to solve a problem leads to more problems. I have therefore decided to take the initiative, which will enable me to solve all the problems that I will encounter in life.
I should also be able to solve these problems efficiently and within the required time. First, I can only learn this skill through life experience because solving a problem is a life experience. Secondly, I will learn the problem-solving skills through my position in the HR department because I will be directly dealing with the employees and solving their problems. Problem-solving is a very important skill that I have to acquire for me to work efficiently in my department.
Through my self-assessment, I realized that I have the necessary leadership skills and qualities. This is because the assessment results proved that I can work well with other people and be an active member by performing some roles. However, I aspire to be a great leader who is effective and improve my skills in team building, negotiation, motivation and setting the goals. I will be able to achieve this by attending leadership training sessions with the organization and even beyond. I will be able to evaluate my progress by organizing a small group of employees at Emirate Airline and be their leader, and I expect my leadership to be rated at 93%.
The self-assessment showed that I can organize a small group of people in achieving a short term objective. This is not good enough because I will be dealing with a relatively large group of people in my department. I have therefore decided to work on the organization skills that will enable me to organize a medium size group of people to achieve a specific objective. To improve my organizing skills, I will develop a timetable that will enable me to manage my life and things.
Identification of Personal Goals and Career Path
To reach the peak of my career, I will develop both short term and long term goals. My short term goals will be within the first year after my graduation, and the long term goals should be accomplished before the third year elapses. These goals, both short term, and long term are going to be realistic and achievable, and I am going to develop a clear strategy for achieving them within the schedule.
My first short term goal will be to find a suitable job with a big of a medium size organization. To attain this goal, I will begin sending my resume and certificates to various potential organizations, which are in my line of profession. However, I will not be limited to the organizations in my line of profession, and I will consider other organizations too. The second short-term goal will be to acquire a professional certificate, especially a professional certificate on HRM. This will give me an added advantage in the field and it may enable me to secure suitable for a permanent job.
The third short-term goal will be to acquire all the needed knowledge and skills in the area. I am aiming to acquire the needed skills and expertise in my line of career, which may enable me to get a greener pasture in the field. I will, therefore, attend the key training session and other professional forums, which will build my career. I, therefore, aim to gain all the needed knowledge, skills and experience in the field in my first year in the field.
My first long term goal will be to rise to the position of a manager within three years. I am looking to achieve this by striving for excellence immediately after getting employed. At the same time, I will enhance my productivity by participating in key programs that boost my knowledge and skills in the role I will be playing. Rising to a position of a manager will give me enough experience and skills, which will enable me to achieve my second goal.
My second long-term goal is to establish my business. I intend to quite formal employment and venture into the corporate world by starting my business. I believe the position of a manager will enable me to earn a good salary, which will enable me to save for my business. I will start a beauty salon, which I believe will do well because the beauty industry is booming all the time. After establishing and stabilizing my first beauty salon, I will open more branches in various town making it a chain of beauty salons. Therefore, my ultimate goal dream is to be a successful business lady.
Conclusion
Because of economic evolvement within the nation and the globe, the level of employment has also changed. There is the need for every individual to have a career development plan that will enable her fit into the competitive career environment. The continuously changing patterns of careers have shown that an individual is expected to be involved in a different career all through her life.
Career intervention is very key as it will offer an individual with an opportunity to better her career and address the emerging challenges. An organization dealing with career development and planning should be established and potential workforce advice to join them in order for them to be competitive and be able to fit into modern job vacancies that are highly competitive in nature.
References List
Cook, E. P., Heppner, M. J., & O’Brien, K. M. (2002). Career development of women of color and white women: Assumptions, conceptualization, and interventions from an ecological perspective. The Career Development Quarterly, 50(4), 291-305.
Watts, A. G. (2011). Global Perspectives in Effective Career Development Practices. Curriculum Leadership