the business skills handbook

The Business Skills Handbook Roy Horn - Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development

The Business Skills HandbookThe Business Skills Handbook



Careers and ‘Futuring’ Skills

Week 19


ReadingReadingRecommended text:

The Business Skills Handbook

Horn, R.

London: CIPD

1st edition, 2009

ISBN: 1843982188

Chapter 19: Careers and ‘Futuring’ Skills (page 475)


Lecture OutlineLecture Outline the skills required to manage a traditional career the skills required in modern careers: protean and

portfolio understand career theory strategies for making the transition into a career


Learning ObjectivesLearning Objectives

understand the nature of twenty-first-century careers develop skills appropriate to different types of career understand and use strategies to make the transition

to employer


CareersCareers

Careers and the notion of ‘a career’ can be characterised in many different ways. I will look at three possible characterisations and associate these with the skills required to succeed. Before we do that, let’s spend a few moments reflecting on the nature of careers.


Careers [2]Careers [2]

Spend some time thinking about the following:

What is the difference between a career and a job?



In reality, is there such a thing as a career or is it just a succession of jobs?



If a career exists – do you own it and control it or does the organisation you work for own it and control it?



If you don’t work in paid employment, can you have a career?



We often use the term career without ever exploring what it means. Different groups have defined the word ‘career’ in many ways. Psychologists would define it as ‘the pattern of organisational experience throughout someone’s life’.



A career coach might define it as a ‘a work-related dream that is defined by goals and milestones’.



An experienced manager might define it as ‘the upward progression or job roles within a single industry’.



You can see from my few examples that it has been and can be defined in numerous ways. So does that mean it is a meaningless term that is of no use when thinking about the skills required to enable you to have a successful working life?



The main benefit in considering the notion of a career is that it creates an entity, something that exists. If a career is something, if it exists, it can be managed. So to my way of thinking the term ‘career’ is useful because it creates something important that you have to manage.



This leads to the notion that being successful involves having a ‘good’ career. And further, to have a good career you need to manage it and bring skills to bear on that career. Careers are not all the same and the skills you need to succeed vary with the different types of career.


Organisational or Traditional CareerOrganisational or Traditional Career

Traditional careers, also called organisational careers, will be played out in only one or two organisations. People would enter organisations at a young age and by progressive promotion rise up the corporate ladder, achieving status and pay increases as they progress.


Organisational or Traditional Organisational or Traditional Career [2]Career [2]

The organisation supports employees and maps out their career paths. They provide a safe and secure working environment where time served is more important than outright performance. In some circumstances an individual career would change organisations, but this was often only among two or three employers.



The locus of control always lies with the organisation and techniques such as manpower planning, succession planning, job rotation and overseas assignments are the means of organisational control.



Traditional careers still exist in large organisations, but this career path is available to fewer and fewer people as organisations become smaller and leaner. If you enter an organisation through a graduate recruitment programme, you can expect to see some elements of traditional careers.



Modern businesses are much flatter organisations where the number of layers of management are considerably reduced. Therefore even in large organisations the inexorable rise up the corporate ladder is not often seen.



Career paths tend to take zig-zag routes that go upwards, sideways and sometimes down. Sometimes these careers paths will change dramatically to different professions even if they do stay within one organisation.



One other trend away from traditional careers is the move to part-time and flexible working.



The term psychological contract has been used since the 1960s to describe the mutual, but mostly unexpressed, obligations of employee and employer. These obligations are mostly informal, imprecise and developed by custom and practice.



But, both parties are expected to abide by this unwritten and informal contract. If the employer breaks the contract, the employee feels betrayed and often leaves the organisation, or stays and operates in an unwilling manner.



If the employee breaks the contract they are often ostracised or feel the pressure from peers or management to leave the organisation. The psychological contract covers a wide range of actions and behaviours by employers and employees.



The traditional career is not dead but you are less likely to experience it in the way your parents would have done. The majority of your parents would have been employed full-time in a few organisations throughout their working lives. Your experience is more likely to be one of mixed career approaches during your life after making the transition to work from university.


Protean CareerProtean Career

Protean careers place the emphasis for managing the process on to the individual. They are essentially a twenty-first-century self-managed career. Protean is named after the Greek god of the sea who could change form at will to match the environment. The term protean is often applied to something flexible or ever-changing.


Protean Career [2]Protean Career [2]

Protean careers were first suggested by Hall (1976) and the term came to be used more extensively during the later part of the 1990s. As economic change required organisations to delayer and outsource functions, the hierarchical structures of bigger organisations were slimmed down.



The traditional career relies on having many organisational layers to provide the progression steps upwards. Once these were removed by delayering and downsizing, the concept of traditional careers was undermined. This was further eroded as the practice of working with one employer for a whole working life gradually disappeared.



So protean careers are likely to have frequent changes of organisation, job role, work setting and contractual arrangement. It may be that the traditional psychological contract as exemplified above is now broken and will not be seen again in the Western world.



If we follow the format of the table above and use it to explore the protean career, you will begin to see the differences. There will naturally be more elements for the employee than the employer as the control of careers passes to individuals.



What skills will be needed to manage a protean career?

Using this book will help you to focus on developing skills that transfer well between workplaces.



But more specific actions will help you manage your protean career:

Keep a skills inventory in a form that you can use when you network or are interviewed for roles in organisations.

Keep an up-to-date portfolio of your achievements so that you can show potential new employers.

Maintain an up-to-date CV. Become a member of your professional association.



Scan the employment market in your sector so that you know:

the major employers the salary rates new projects that are being developed network contacts the desired skillset for any areas you are interested in



Ensure your key skills, those we have been studying in this book, are up to date.

Focus on and record all learning opportunities. Ensure you have an up-to-date and well-developed

CPD file in an appropriate form for your professional association.



Develop meaningful relationships with peers, employers, customers and competitors.

Organise and prioritise your wants and needs. Actively manage your work–life balance. Invest in yourself, setting aside time and money to

develop marketable skills. Take every opportunity to network



Management authors have always looked for a definitive set of skills and competencies to indicate the effective manager. This has proved an elusive concept, but Pedler, Burgoyne and Boydell (1994) developed a competency classification system reflecting the successful manager.



Their research indicated that there were three levels of competencies and qualities an effective manager possessed. In order, these are:

1. basic knowledge and information

2. skills and attributes

3. meta-competencies



Hall et al also make reference to ‘meta-competencies’ in terms of managing protean careers. They list the two meta-competencies as:

self-awareness adaptability



A further set of skills that would allow for the effective management of protean careers includes:

planning, organising and priority-setting self-assessment of skills and attributes focus on and development of saleable skills relational skills social skills reflective learner skills



personal management skills of work–life balance coping with change skills networking skills sense of security and identity – self-worth skills stress control management skills retraining and development skills

Protean careers are likely to be far more common than traditional careers as business adapts to global competition.


Portfolio CareerPortfolio Career

Portfolio careers, as the name suggests, consist of a portfolio of jobs. These can include full-time or part-time jobs, paid or unpaid. They will normally be with a range of employers in a range of places.


Portfolio Career [2]Portfolio Career [2]

They may well be completely different types of job. For example, a professional HR practitioner on a fractional appointment may also have a hobby organisation producing plants in a small nursery.



Portfolio careers exist most commonly for the newly graduated or young person and, at the other end of the spectrum, for the newly retired or partially retired person.



For the newly graduated, it is a way to make some money and gain some experience. For the newly or partially retired person, it is a way to top up a pension and keep active and involved.



For the young portfolio careerist it is often a transition stage to a protean or traditional career. For the older person, it is often a permanent change of approach that allows them to be in more control of their lives and to some extent, when working voluntarily, to give something back to the local community.



There is a further group of portfolio careerists who choose the approach for work–life balance reasons so that they are more in control of when and where they work. It is also a chosen option for those who want some security but also want the freedom to create their own enterprise.



Portfolio careers are built around a collection of skills and experience. The skills required for managing a portfolio career are very similar to those needed for a protean career. These feature the meta-skills of self-awareness, adaptability, self-organising and networking skills.



An example of a transitional portfolio career might be the new graduate who works voluntarily one day a week in a conservation area. But also has two days’ paid work at a marketing agency and works two evenings in a bar.



The balance of the portfolio will start off biased towards making some money but should develop into a more strategic experience-gathering portfolio. The main aim for many people is to secure a full-time paid job in one organisation.


The Transition into a CareerThe Transition into a Career

The economics of the second decade in the twenty-first century will make the transition from university to the career ladder harder than ever. For many students there will need to be a transition stage that gives them a ‘leg up’ onto the career ladder.


The Transition into a Career [2]The Transition into a Career [2]

This transition step could take one of many forms. This section considers some of the better known ways to make the jump from student to career ladder.



Internships Internships for graduates are not new; they have

existed in the USA for a long period and they are being used in the UK and throughout the world more frequently. Work experience is a major success factor in getting on the career ladder with a well-paid permanent post.



Internships are designed to give you practical experience and provide an environment where you can practise business skills. They may be paid, unpaid or partially paid. It can seem unfair to think you have worked hard for a degree and then have to take unpaid work.



However, it is better to view this as the vital finishing aspects of your degree before you enter the career environment. In law this process is more formalised as all law graduates have to undergo pupillage as the final step in becoming barristers. To become a solicitor you have to undergo two years practical training in what is now known as a ‘training contract’, but used to be known as ‘articles’.



So the idea of having practical experience after graduating is fairly common in some areas of enterprise.

One of the recurring problems for new graduates is their lack of work experience. You often here them say, ‘how can I get any experience without a job?’ Internships will fill this gap and make you more likely to be recruited at a job interview or assessment centre.



Work experience not only provides you with valuable ‘real’ experience; it also gives you the opportunity to experience your chosen job before you enter into a career in that area.



Many, many graduates have taken an internship in their desired and dreamt about business area only to realise after just a day or two that it is not the job for them. So it gives you a chance to try out the ‘nuts and bolts’ of a job, thus avoiding a miserable major career mistake or blind alley.



There are other benefits to internships: enhancing your CV with business-related experience networking contacts for your future career search provides an environment to practise and hone your

business skills learning specific work-based skills experiencing the working environment and

developing coping strategies



improving the important business-related skills such as presentations, management, communication and sales

understanding organisational culture and workplace politics

engaging with organisational training and development to further enhance business skills

experience of operating in project teams



Portfolio careers A portfolio career is one where your income comes

from a range of sources. When transitioning from university it normally consists of a number of small part-time jobs. You take a small role for four hours a week here and another small role somewhere else for six hours and maybe two evenings a week on something else.



The main point is that you are earning money and getting a diverse range of experience. It is important to try to gain experience in your chosen area rather than take any small job. In economic recessions companies often cannot afford to employ full-time specialist workers. But they may well create a role for an HR, accounting, or marketing person for six hours per week.



New graduates often have limited experience but they still have specialist knowledge and enthusiasm.



There are benefits to portfolio careers: They are flexible and fit in around other

commitments, such as childcare or sport. They provide a diverse range of experience quickly. They provide a wide range of networking

opportunities within the companies and with the companies’ suppliers and customers.



You are in control of the roles you choose to take. There is very little chance that the roles will get

boring and repetitive. There will be many opportunities for learning and

development. Above all, they show potential employers that you are

willing and able to find work and make a success of it.

They place you in the work environment so you are well placed if a job role does come up.



Entrepreneurial careers Entrepreneurial careers involve starting and running

small organisations to provide products or services. It is very easy and quick to start a small company. It costs practically nothing to start a small service company as you can operate from your home base and work for clients at their premises or at home.



So if no one will employ you, employ yourself. Entrepreneurial careers provide independence and the boss will never sack you. You never know, once you have tried it you may not want a 9–5 career. But if you do, the experience will allow you to stand out from other candidates.



Agencies or interim manager posts Working for an agency can provide valuable

experience. As an alternative if you have a small amount of experience in management you can become an interim manager. See the website for interim managers at the end of the chapter.



Social networking job search The new trend in recruiting is to use social networking

sites such as Second Life and Twitter. In Second Life you will find companies such as Microsoft, Dell, Toyota, Adidas and Cisco Systems.



Twitter job search has about 250,000 jobs added each month. It has a job search map where you can search for jobs in your local area. Recruiting using social networks will continue to grow, so if you are looking for that first job – start networking.


Activity Activity

Case Study Preparation

Career Surprise

Wo

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gr o

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120 minutes’ prep

5 minutes’ feedback

Feedback to the group – answers to the five tasks



The End

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