Career Transition in Today's Environment

Career Transition

In this paper, I will research career transition and how it has impacted the workforce and management. I will present from three research articles that I feel are important in understanding how career transition affects adults who are transitioning from one career to another. As an HRM, one of the biggest parts of our job will be to recruit new talent. Traditional careers are falling to the wayside and emerging is a type of employee who has been around the block once or twice. I am going to focus on first the way careers are changing, then I am going to look at the military and how they prepare their retirees, many of whom are still in their 30's, for retirement, and finally, I will look at career transition and what role HR plays.

Gone are the days of staying with one company until you are eligible for the pension and a gold watch. The average person born in the later years of the baby boom held 10.8 jobs from age 18 to age 42, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor (Number of Jobs Held, Labor Market Activity, and Earnings Growth Among the Youngest Baby Boomers: Results From a Longitudinal Survey Summary , 2008). Career transition is no longer looked at as something to avoid putting on your resume. It seems like everyone it doing. So how can a person make the transition smooth and successful? Career transition often requires employing new tools, skills and/or a switch in perception.

In her article, Beyond the Career Mystique: "Time in," "Time out," and "Second Acts", Phyllis Moen. states that Americans confront a major mismatch between outdated career and retirement regimes and the exigencies of (1) family responsibilities, and (2) the risks and uncertainties associated with a competitive, global, and information-based economy. Unlike privileged workers in the 1950s, members of America's 21st-century workforce find it increasingly rare to have either a full-time homemaker or a secure, "lifetime" job. This mismatch challenges both scholars and policy makers to revisit, research, and rewrite the disparate scripts constituting the rules of the career game. The mid-20th-century bargain of trading a lifetime of paid work for a lifetime of income security-never a reality except for a group of middle-class office workers and unionized production workers in the post war economic boom of the 1950s-is probably gone forever. (Moen) Her points regarding the changing career climate are spot on. Many of the lifetime jobs are ones that have no real advancement potential. A GS (Government Service) job will allow for increases in pay due to step promotion and COLA increases, but in order to advance into a higher GS position a person would have to make significant gains in their education and/or work experience. Both of these might require leaving the current job for a time period. In some cases, the GS jobs have no advancement potential even with additional education, a person would have to quit their current job and reapply for a new position. Even more evidence that points to employers changing the career game is an article published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that states that employ¬ers are replacing defined-benefit retirement plans with defined-contribution retirement plans, allowing employers to shift more responsibility for retire¬ment income to the employee. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010) So what are the consequences of this alteration of the career landscape? The median age of workers are increasing. The prime age group, composed of 25- to 54-year-olds, is projected to increase by 1.6 million and make up 63.5 percent of the total labor force in the target year. The youth labor force, composed of 16- to 24-year-olds, is expected to decline from the 2008 level, but will remain over 21 million in 2018.

The military is one area that has a great deal of experience with career change. Not only do the military members change jobs frequently, most retire after only 20 years of service. This puts someone who may only be 38 in the position finding new employment at a relatively young age. A study examined the concerns of retiring Marine Corps noncommissioned officers (NCOs) as they experience the adult career transition of retirement from military service and transition to the civilian workplace. Analysis of focus group transcripts reveal a range of concerns related to the transition factors cited in Schlossberg's Transition Theory as the 4 S's: situation, self, support, strategy. The study provided insight on the issues and challenges Marine Corps noncommissioned officers (NCOs), and all Military Personnel face upon retirement based on the following articulated themes: cultural, community, social and psychological concerns. The paper suggested that programming be offered to facilitate transition and should also address psychological and social concerns which may improve the quality and outcomes of transition to a new role in civilian life. (Johnston, Fletcher, Ginn, & Stein) Many of these jobs are in the skilled labor fields which are light on EAP's to assist once the transition has occurred.

Next to the military, education is another area that see its fair share of transition. A quick Google search on career transition will bring up a plethora of sites offering advice on starting a second career in teaching. The main areas that see an influx are secondary high school education teachers and entry-level college instructors. Why are these areas so appealing? One paper seeks to reviews the current theory in areas relevant to industry-to-academia career transitions, and to outline a theory that targets this category of employee directly. They sought to outline the first step toward a limited theory explaining the special needs and motivations of industry-to-academia career transitions. Throughout this paper, the hybrid academic institution, consisting of a traditional core and a nontraditional