Career Management

Career Management

Abstract

Career Management is an important process that helps a productive individual build an effective career path that will respond to one 's personal goals and aspirations . Exploration of individual cases including the history of personal careers and challenges faced by people on their way to unfolding their potential will open the way toward a better understanding of one 's own prospects in life . This summarises an interview with Jon Drake , a Marketing Manager with Dream Factory , Inc . Jon 's career development is analyzed , as well as current

challenges and issues , and suggestions are offered to his company to help him cope with difficulties

Current Development Stage

Jon Smith is at the moment at the maintenance stage of his career which is focused on holding on , keeping on and innovating (Chang , 2005 At this stage , an individual hits on a kind of a career plateau on which he or she is forced to keep on , at the same time seeking new opportunities for growth

Jon has now been in the marketing field for five years , and one could safely assume that exploration and establishment are more or less completed for him . He discovered that he is not willing to work for specialized marketing agencies or engage in research . He has identified his field as strategic market planning and enjoys helping the organisation build a successful and effective development path . He has also established his position as a successful marketing manager , and the three companies he worked for recognized his expertise in this area

Career Management Challenge

Jon 's only option for progress is to move toward more managerial positions that will include supervision of three or more employees . At his point in career development , he seems to have enough professional knowledge to point direction of work to other individuals . Moreover , he has had experience managing a department at his first workplace supervising a department that contained only one employee in addition to him . This was certainly limited managerial experience , but it helped him to gain necessary skills in managing personnel and organising activities

However , at the moment Jon seems to have hit a hurdle in his progression toward managerial positions . He recently moved to a new area where he seems to experience problems with communication . Quite often , fellow employees in the same rank as he is find his communication style trying his jokes heavy-handed and offensive , and believe him to be rude at times . Jon is puzzled by this as his behavior was deemed perfectly acceptable at his previous workplace . In any case , this problem seems to affect him seriously , undermining his belief in managing others

Besides , he confided in me that he feels he is losing interest in marketing . This is a more serious issue since this is the only thing he knows in depth . In any case , Jon prefers assignments that are not overloading , shuns responsibility , and would prefer a less rushed and more relaxed lifestyle compared to what he has now . In case he...