Instructor: Farida Abdul Halim, Surena Sabil

Course Synopsis

The aim of this course is to introduce the perspectives, context and practices of careers as well as career development in organizations. Among the topics discussed in this course are

• Differing views of careers from an individual's perspective as well as from an organization's perspective
• Key career development theories
• Steps in developing an organizational career development system
• Related career concepts.
• Selected current issues in careers

The following texts are key to understanding this course better:

1. Greenhaus, J.H., Callanan, G.A. & Godshalk, V.M. (2010). Career Management (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage
2. Brown, D. (2004). Career Choice and Development (4th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
3. Liebowitz, Z.B., Farren, C. & Kaye, B. L. (1986). Designing Career Development Systems (5th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

This OpenCourseWare@UNIMAS and its related materials are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

At the end of this unit, you will be able to:

• Define what a career is
• Distinguish between individual and organizational perspectives of careers
• Identify new types of careers
• Explain the importance of environmental factors on careers

Is it Necessary to work? Which is more important? Work or Family?

Image courtesy of http://binskblog.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_archive.html

At the end of this unit, you will be able to:

• Describe Gottfriedson's Theory of Cirumscription, Compromise and Self Creation
• Describe the Social Cognitive Career Theory
• Kaleidoscope Career Theory

A good theory represents reality. It explains and also predicts relationships.

Although, the theories presented here greatly over-simplify reality, they also help in understanding reality. 

This Barnsley fern is an excellent example of a representation of a real fern (Black Spleenwort).

Image courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnsley_fern

At the end of this unit, you will be able to:

• Explain how needs assessment for a CD system is conducted
• Discuss benefits of a CD system.
• Explain how to implement action plans to support career development systems.

How can you as a CD professional assist your organization to develop careers of its employees?

At the end of this unit, you will be able to:

• Define key career concepts
• Provide examples of each career concept

Image courtesy of slashingdasani.deviantart.com

How do you define success? What are the factors to consider when making decisions about what jobs to take up?

At the end of this unit, you will be able to:

• Discuss the impact of stress on organizational careers.
• Discuss organizational initiatives on managing diversity.
• Discuss the sources of stress and coping in two career families.
• Discuss factors that encourage entrepreneurial careers.

Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikekline/864788349/in/photostream

Some of the major issues in career development include handling stress, balancing work and home life as well as the trend of dual-career families.