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Since career is one of time most important aspects of people’s life in the world nowadays, it is carefully studied in order to prepare the job seekers to approach this process in the best way possible. This paper sums up the main terms and concepts I learnt in this course and also associates them with my past career experiences and future views on my career.
Career is one of the most important aspects of a contemporary person’s life. This is why making a responsible and well-thought career-choice is crucial. In his book “Understanding Careers: The Metaphors of Working Life” Inkson (2007) notes that one’s career shapes half of their waking hours, and is responsible for one’s social and financial status, personality, surroundings, community and main occupations. One of the main objectives of this course was to bring the learners awareness about their career choices and their personal traits and features in order to teach them how to make career decisions in the future. This paper summarizes what I have learnt from the course about the careers and decision making process, and presents the conclusions I came to viewing myself as a career actor and analyzing my personality traits and my career path from the past and my plans for the future.
One of the first concepts Inkson (2007) represents in his book is the term “career actor”. Inkson notes that this term refers to every working person, whose actions and choices form their career. Viewing myself as a career actor and also following the idea that a career is not only a sequence of jobs within one organization or one field, but all paid working experience I have been through in my life, I started to analyze and re-evaluate my past approaches towards career (Inkson 2007). During this course I realized that I used to have a flawed understanding of what my career really includes. I have experience of working in fast food industry, which I always referred to as a temporary job. Moreover, none of my co-workers at Burger King considered their work at the restaurant as their career. Today, Burger King job is a part of my Career Map together with all other paid occupations I obtained through the course of my life.
I also found it very refreshing and useful to view my career path within the context of my life events and environments. Inkson’s (2007) idea to view career as a cycle made me notice the stages and patterns most career actors tend to go through. Interviewing a member of my family for one of my Blackboard Assignments I received a warning that I might not be able to find a good job right away, and that this is a normal pattern for the majority of work seekers. This was a clear sign of the truth of Inkson’s theory. In my career I went through the cycle of job seeking, obtaining a short-term occupation, then entering the main career field, then moving back to short-term jobs and returning to my main career field. Besides, my life is also a great demonstration of the way a career can affect one’s personal relationships. Working in the military I met the man, who became my husband, and we also are friends with many former colleagues from the military, which supports the theory that careers can be discussed under the metaphorical heading of relationships (Inkson 2007). Moreover, my career can be called a journey in both metaphorical and literal senses, because during my military service I had an opportunity to work all around the United States and Middle East.
Organizational ideology is another important concept, for military is one of the fields where career ideology, hierarchy, language and structure are very specific and meaningful. Career tracks within military service are very standard and rather inflexible. As for occupational ideology, there are a number of stereotypes as to which individuals are suitable and not suitable for this career. For example, as a woman, I would be referred to as the representative of the minority group in this male-dominated field.
Inkson (2007) also presents a list of aspects that impact employees’ job satisfaction. They are important, congruence, development, planning and balance. Meanings of these aspects and their prioritization are flexible and change over time, as people’s attitude towards their careers and needs changes. For example, when I just started my military service, development and congruence were my main priorities. Now that I have a family of my own, I prioritize balance and planning more, although congruence is crucial for me. Having tried working in various spheres, I discovered that incongruent environments are highly unpleasant to work in. This makes me agree with Holland’s theory about fit mentioned by Inkson (2007).
Compiling a list of my skills and features and discussing them with my friends and family was a highly revealing activity, as it showed me that my self-perception differs from what others see in me. This was another useful lesson from this course for me. Overall, taking this course I learnt how to critically evaluate myself, view my career path and choices in the context together with all the influences they produce, and to make responsible and valuable decisions for my future career. This course prepared me for the future challenges in job seeking and decision making. It also pointed out the aspects I was not aware of before, such as the priority aspects of my career, the connection between my background and my work, and my suitability for certain kinds of work.
Reference
Inkson, K. (2007). Understanding careers: The metaphors of working life. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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