Lifelong Career Management

I liked this article from Careerealism http://www.careerealism.com/career-management-process/ It dovetails nicely with our earlier posts on developing a personal career management strategy; and encouraging career choices and talent management at an early age in schools.  

What I particularly liked is the reference to career management being a life-long exercise. We will be exploring taking ownership for your own career management in later posts

Talent Management is critical in schools

Encouraging & nurturing talent in schools is essential. Picture: Sean MacEntee

There seems to be a lot in the press at the moment about the lack of women in executive positions. Following on from articles yesterday, and our earlier blog posts, I have spotted this article in The Telegraph today (13th April 2013) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/9985111/Forget-women-at-the-top-business-must-work-harder-to-appeal-to-school-girls.html

I can see the article has attracted a lot of comments already. Once again I would state quotas don't work and are divisive - promotion should be on talent. However, that said we should be growing talent at an early age in school - which unfortunately is not always the case.

I was educated in the state system and was fortunate to go to a good all-girls school. I was an academic pupil and had decided I was interested in becoming an accountant. To this day I remember meeting with the then deputy head to discuss career advice and my options. I told her about my aspirations. 

Career advice? She said to me "accountancy is a very difficult profession and most people fail so I would advise you to do something else"   

How demotivational was that?  Thankfully I was, and still am, a confident and strong-willed person. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and looking back her comments only served to make me even more determined!

I am pleased to say I qualified as a CIMA accountant in 1995!

My worry is that this mentality may still exist. We should be encouraging young people, both male and female, to follow their dreams and tell them that anything is possible with hard work.  That is why at the One Stop Career Shop one of our core business values is Demonstrate Integrity. We believe in positively contributing to growing talent, as they are the future. We work actively with local schools to help young people develop work life skills.

Is There Equality In Executive Recruitment?

Apparently this article published in The Guardian in December 2012 suggests NOT http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/dec/12/research-lack-women-executive-roles. Despite having cracked many equality barriers it appears women have still not managed to smash through the senior management recruitment ceiling.

A Guardian article of 11th April 2013 refers to a recent Cranfield School of Management study, which would appear to highlight that the gender gap at senior levels is still an issue http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/11/every-woman-boardroom-pull-more-up . 

In the article Karen Brady is quoted as saying:

"Every woman in the boardroom must pull others up behind her"

Sadly I feel this is not common practice. It is also a bit of a chicken and egg situation - more women are needed at senior levels to help nurture new female talent of the future. At the One Stop Career Shop http://www.onestopcareershop.co.uk/Career-Coaching.php I regularly encounter female clients who are struggling to gain that executive promotion, despite having all the requisite skills. I see them becoming more despondent and disillusioned with their employers and ultimately they look to move on to pastures new. Surely this can't be a good thing?

What can be done?
I firmly believe that quotas are not the way to go - they are artificial and create resentment. True equality should be gained on merit. What is needed is for employers to recognise the value of a varied skill set at executive level and for them to create a working environment where this is allowed to flourish. Only that way will women achieve senior promotions. 
I am myself a manager in a blue-chip organisation and I think we all have a role to play in developing those who work for us, male or female. 

Karen Brady - an inspirational female executive, we just need more!  Photo attributed to johnmuk

What Does Career Management Mean to You?

Part 1 of our series on career management. 

In the coming weeks we are going to be exploring what is career management, with a view to helping individuals devise their own career management strategies.

  

Recently on LinkedIn I ran a poll on what others associated with career mentoring. 

The results were as follows:

50% wanted help to formulate a career strategy 

20% wanted help in establishing what is important to them in driving their career

20% were seeking help and support with job applications  

10% wanted help to identify a career direction in terms of role/sector

This led me to thinking that the components required for an effective career strategy was probably a good topic to launch our blog.  

I particularly liked the picture above which got me thinking about what to consider for an effective career strategy. Other factors I thought of were:  

• Contribution 
•  Knowledge 
•  Perseverance 
•  Responsibility 
•  Growth 
•  Potential 
•  Performance 
•  Development 
• Training 
•  Ability 
•  Management 
• Experience 

I have clustered these component parts loosely as follows and will cover them in future posts

More information about career mentoring can be found here

One Stop Career Shop is new to blogging!

We are very excited to launch our new blog. More posts on CV writing and career management coming soon......
Bev Tibbbles
http://www.onestopcareershop.co.uk