28-03-2012, 04:37 PM
THE DYNAMICS OF CAREER CHOICE
Prof. (Mrs.) Uwe - Career Choice.doc (Size: 67 KB / Downloads: 227)
INTRODUCTION
The importance of career in one’s life cannot be overemphasized. Work is a concept that is as old as human civilization. A generally accepted view is that work is a way of life. It has always been central to human survival. It is a natural phenomenon since every human being has the propensity to work. Work could be as satisfying as a play or as dissatisfying as a lost war. There are few relations which so completely embrace a man’s entire person as his relation to his work. Genesis informs us that work was not in man’s original nature but was included soon after. “In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread”, was both the Lord’s punishment for Adam’s fall and his gift and blessing to make bearable and meaningful man’s life in his fallen state (Gensis 3:19). One school of thought stated that “man’s relationship to his work underlies all of man’s life and achievements, his civil society, his arts, his history”. The type of work one does is an important determinant of his or her entire life. There is a popular axiom which says, “labour maketh man”. This depicts the centrality of work in man’s evolution. The expenditure of energy in some form of work is a natural process.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
Occupation: An occupation is a group of similar jobs and positions, a position being a group of tasks performed by one person.
Career: A career is the sequence of occupations, jobs, and positions, occupied during a person’s working life. The definition of a career may be extended beyond either end of the working life to include pre-occupational and post-vocational positions. Career refers to a person’s total life pattern which include both work and non-work factors.
FACTORS OF VOCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
1. The family and social influences
2. Personality influences
3. Strength
4. Interests
5. Aptitudes or abilities
6. Values
7. Divine leading
8. Ordinal position
9. The school
In guiding a child’s choice of career, the counselor organizes his work bearing in mind these four-point plan:
1) Developing the child’s self-concept.
2) Developing the child’s occupational concepts.
3) Developing his/her occupational self-concept.
4) Developing his/her extra-occupational concept.
In simpler form therefore:
SATISFACTIONS SOUGHT FROM WORK:
i) Material:
Income: to secure goals, services and economic independence;
Security: to ensure continuity of income;
Prospects: to ensure steadily rising income
Intra-firm: good, healthy working conditions, easy, safe, relaxed supervision, pension.
Temporal-spatial: hours, holidays, early retirement, no weekend work, within easy reach of home.
People whose work choice is dominated by materialistic considerations appear to have asked themselves: Where can I get the greatest return for the smallest inconvenience and effort?
ii) Status:
In the community; Professional status, or within the firm; Approval of ‘significant others’; Personally valued occupational role.
The striving after qualifications may be associated with any or all of these status needs. Status motivation is revealed by answering the question: Does the individual seek at all through his job to enhance his image in his own eyes or in the eyes of significant others?
iii) Skill
Mastery and exercise of a skill;
Satisfaction with end-product;
Autonomy and self-determination;
Responsibility.
iv) Dominant Value:
Valued-based choices e.g. helping the sick, poor, etc.;
Obsessional emotional attachments – acting.
Love of animals, children, sport, cars, etc.
The question has to be put in such cases:
Will the fervour persist and sustain an occupational life-time of effort and achievement, or will it evaporate before the cold wind of reality?
v) Associational:
Congenial work associates and conditions
Meeting people – customers, clients, patients, etc.
vi) Perceptual:
Variety
Outdoor work
Travel
This need is often expressed negatively as a wish to avoid ‘routine’ and ‘monotony’ and positively in such terms as ‘variety’, ‘novelty’, ‘stimulating’, ‘new experiences’, ‘broadening my mind’.
SUPER’S THEORY OF VOCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
1) People differ in abilities, interests, and personalities.
2) They are qualified, by virtue of these characteristics, each for a number of occupations.
3) Each of these occupations requires a characteristics pattern of abilities, interests, and personality traits, with tolerances wide enough however, to allow both some variety of occupation for each individual and some variety of individuals in each occupation.