Career Management & Work-Life Integration

Preface Acknowledgments 1. Understanding the New Career Three Career Cases The Barnes Family Helen Casey The Smith Family The Changing Landscape of Careers The Changing Nature of Families The New Careers Our Career and Work-Life Model 2. The Self-Assessment Process The Basic Areas of Self-Assessment Reflecting on the Past Identity as a Core Competence Clarifying Your Values Understanding Your Interests and Passions Lifestyle Understanding Life Goals and Personal Vision Skills Assessment Summary 3. Integrating Your Self-Assessment and Developing Implications Integrating Your Self-Assessment Developing Themes from Your Data Step 1: Coding Your Data Step 2: Grouping Your Data Step 3: Assigning Tentative Themes step 4: Constructing the Final Themes With Supporting Data Sample Themes Developing Career and Work-Life Implications Summary 4. Finding Ideal Work Job Loss Assessing the Labor Market Identifying the Right Opportunities for You Job Search Tools References Resumes Starting a Professional Portfolio Cover Letters Conducting the Job Search Networking and the Job Search Informational Interviews Guidelines for Conducting an Informational Interview Questions to Ask Identifying the Ideal Employer Special Challenges and Tips for International Students Who Want to Work in the United States Career Decision-Making Summary 5. Career Development Strategies Organizational Career Paths From Career Ladders to Career Lattices Vertical Careers and Organizational Advancement Managing Up Alternative Career Paths-Salzman's Typology Backtrackers Plateauers Career Shifters Self-Employers Urban Escapees The Portfolio Career Ongoing Development Organizational Career Systems International Assignments Financial Considerations Summary 6. Work and Family Men and Women, Families and Work Dual-Career Couples Dual-Career Families Sources of Stress Role Conflict Summary 7. Workplace Flexibility Flexible Work Arrangements Flextime Compressed Work Week Part-Time and Reduced-Load Work Job Sharing Telecommuting Leaves Sabbaticals Other Elements of the Family-Friendly Workplace The Family-Friendly Workplace Culture The Dark Side of Flexible Work Arrangements Summary 8. Career Development Over the Lifespan Lifespan Development: Are Career and Life Stages Still Relevant Today? Adult Life Stages Gender and Life Stages A New Model for Middle and Later Years: Learning Cycles The Second (or Third or Fourth) Career Protean Career and Older Workers How Do We Tap the Potential of Older Workers? Use Developmental Relationships Opt for New and Varied Job Experience Improve Person--Job Brokering Use Information Technology Retirement How Do I Want to Design My Life for the Thir Phase? Financial Planning and Careers in Later Life Summarizing Careers Over the Lifespan Book Summary Appendix: Standards of Excellence Index Bibliography Index About the Authors

"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 * Newsletter * "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 * Business India *