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9 Career Development and Development as a Professional
THE CHANGING CONTEXT In the 1980s career planning was apparently straightforward. Organizations recruited those with potential and, through careful selection, ensured they had commitment. They provided training and management development schemes as a result of which the talented and loyal were promoted and prepared to train others, because there was no fear of redundancy. It was possible for employees to plan family lives, to anticipate changes of location and the timing of progress up the hierarchy. All apparently benefited from this long, stable career ladder. In contrast, now jobs are scarcer and more precarious, with the world changing at an unprecedented rate, all employees need to be resilient, flexible and capable of adjusting their sights at short notice. This does not yet apply to teaching but developments discussed below may have an impact on this. Career ladders are now sustained for as little as three to five years in many organizations, though the more traditional professions in particular have not yet responded to this new career model in the wider world. Careers have to be planned using new life planning skills with sharper goal-setting feeding into the process. Kanter (1989) encouraged workers to improve their marketability through keeping their professional knowledge and technical skills up to date so they could be applied in many different contexts. However, now even those on fast-track schemes can find themselves plateaued unless they are adept at coping with change because of the very fast track which has kick-started their careers. Employers know they need a committed talented flexible workforce to survive, even when the employment they offer is not permanent and long-term, so they have to explore what they can offer to achieve this. This involves identifying career strategies for all individuals and trying to align these with current corporate needs, whilst conscientiously maintaining and developing individual skills. MANAGING YOUR CAREER Yvonne Sarch was asked by the Observer in a short series, The Science of Success (copy undated) in an article ‘Future perfect’ to explain how truly brilliant careers were achieved. The checklist derived from her book, How to be Headhunted, was: 86
