My Career Plan

When I was a child, I was very communicative. It was interesting for me to talk to all relatives and friends as well as help them and try to understand them. When I went to school, I understood that not all subjects were interesting. In fact, I liked only the subjects connected with social sciences or lessons when I was able to communicate with classmates. I understood that I was a very sociable person, and I could not imagine my life without communications and helping others. Therefore, I decided to focus on subjects related to my interests because my dream was to enter college or university and to choose social sciences as a major. Later, I realized that work in HR department would be the best choice for me. I understood that since my parents had problems with work, they often blamed HR specialists. The reason is that they were often fired or not employed because of non-professional HR department employees, although they really had good skills for those occupations. I realized that relations between employees and HR department were often complicated and could cause controversial issues. Thus, I decided to work in HR field in order to establish good relations and provide opportunities to employees and understand their problems since my communicative skills and loyalty to people were good for such work.

In addition to studying, I had different hobbies during my school years. In fact, most of them were connected with social activities. Owing to the fact that I liked communicating and cooperating with other people, it was very hard for me to be alone. Thus, I chose dancing as my hobby. It was interesting to me because I could meet and communicate with many people with the same interests. Moreover, dancing taught me how to efficiently work in a team when everybody should do what is required. In addition to dancing, I liked socializing with friends. We liked team sports and games, and we enjoyed reaching success in a team, when everybody helps each other. While being with my friends, I realized that I like people as well as their inner world. Furthermore, I enjoyed assisting them and teaching them something. Hereby, social activities became even more important for me.

Frankly speaking, I was good only in social sciences at school, while other sciences were boring for me. As it was mentioned above, it was among the reasons I dreamt about working in HR sphere. If I compare my current dreams with those in the past, they have not changed much. When I entered college and started studying with people of same interests, social sciences became even more interesting. During studies, my communication skills and social knowledge improved, and I know exactly that HR was a good major to choose. I can say that my knowledge and skills in school improved in college. I am going to graduate next year, but I still do not have an available job for me. I want to seek it myself because I want to choose a job that will be interesting and pleasant to me.

1) SWOT analysis of myself:

Strengths:

• I am communicative and understand people well.
• I like helping people and giving advice.
• I can easily resolve different people’s problems.
• I am quite good at HR sphere.

Weaknesses:

• I am not good at working with HR programs.
• I am not always punctual.
• I am not good at calculation and statistics; however, it may be important in HR work.

Opportunities:

• I can improve my professional skills if I enhance my abilities to work with HR programs, calculation skills and punctuality.
• I can become a better specialist if I read more literature in HR.

Threats:

• If I fail to improve my skills in HR, I may lose many career opportunities because other specialists with higher skills will be hired.

Big five personality traits were proposed by psychologists to analyze personality. Hereby, they include openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism (“Big 5 personality traits,” n.d.). Hence, my personality can be described as follows:

Openness to experience: I am always open to people, unique and creative, and often present new ideas.

Conscientiousness: I can call myself organized, objectives-oriented and systematic. However, I am not very punctual.

Extraversion: I am a very sociable and communicative person. Social situations bring me joy and satisfaction, and I prefer working in groups.

Agreeableness: I am kind and sensitive to people as well as tolerant. I am good at helping others to resolve their problems.

Neuroticism: I cannot call myself anxious, temperamental or moody.

2) Career identity is a way in which a person defines their career. Talking about career insight, it determines whether a person is realistic about their career and feels the qualifications are appropriate for the career. With regard to career resilience, it is the ability to change career or adapt to changing environment (Schreuder & Coetzee, 2005, p.65).

Career identity. My career identity is working with people, while other types of work are not interesting for me.

Career insight. I think I am realistic about my career and myself. I am very communicative, and it helps to work with people. Moreover, I understand people well and like working in groups. Consequently, I can resolve their problems. Therefore, HR sphere is a good choice for my future work.

Career resilience. HR sphere is popular now, and there are many opportunities for HR specialists. However, if I do not find work in HR, I can try to find it in other spheres of work with people, for example, social work.

3) Schein’s Career Anchors include technical or functional, general managerial, autonomy or independence, security or stability, entrepreneurial creativity, service or dedication, pure challenge and lifestyle anchors (“Edgar Schein’s career anchors,” n.d.). Taking into account all eight career anchors, some fit me completely, some fit me partly, and some do not fit me at all.

1. Technical or functional competence anchor fits me. My desire is to be a good expert. Moreover, I do not like routine and prefer solving problems, handling others and helping them.
2. General managerial competence anchor fits me partly. I like solving people’s problems and working with people. Nevertheless, I do not like being a manager.
3. Autonomy or independence anchor does not fit me. I cannot work under my own rules as I cannot form them well. In addition, I want my work to correspond to other people’s interests, and I cannot work out of a group.
4. Security or stability anchor fits me. Stability and security are very important for my life and work. I do not like unpredicted changes and risks. Thus, in life and work, I usually try to avoid risks or minimize them.
5. Entrepreneurial creativity anchor fits me partly. I consider myself creative, and I am often focused on generating ideas or inventing something. Moreover, I rarely feel bored. In addition, I do not like ownership and high level of responsibility. Finally, wealth is not a sign of success for me.
6. Service or dedication to a cause anchor fits me. I like helping other people and resolve their problems using my skills and talents.
7. Pure challenge anchor does not fit me. I prefer stability and try to avoid large challenges. Furthermore, I do not want to change job often.
8. Lifestyle anchor does not fit me. My work is of the same importance for me as my lifestyle, and I do not plan to cease to work for long periods.

4) If I consider my personal balance, I think that I have obtained it already. It is easy for me to combine my study, work and personal life, and they all do not interfere in each other. I can say that I face role conflicts sometimes. For instance, it happens when I work in a team and do not agree with my teammate who is my friend at the same time. The reason is that it is hard for me to tell my friend that I do not agree with them.

I have acquired much knowledge on traditional vertical careers, which are also known as job enrichment. In traditional vertical careers, an employee receives different sources of job satisfaction. In fact, those sources appear with the growth of employee’s responsibility level. Moreover, traditional vertical careers are focused on giving an employee additional autonomy in working and making decisions. In addition, control over the work and other people grows. Therefore, it can be stated that employee is stimulated with increased responsibility.

I learned that so-called protean careers are grounded on an individual employee rather that the organization where they work. In fact, this concept was described by Douglas T. Hall in 1976. Apparently, this type of career is almost not dependent on the organization. An employee can define what success means for them and individually achieve own goals. The individual who has such career is relatively independent and oriented on personal goals. Thus, they can manage themselves independently and know what goals are crucial and how to reach them.

In terms of boundaryless careers, I learned that they have some advantages if compared to traditional vertical careers and other models. In fact, such careers are typical for current changing environment. The reason is that they allow stimulating flexibility, mobility and knowledge development among employees. The boundaries of organizations and professions become slight, and employees can move easily from one career or sphere to another. Thus, the process is under control of an employee but not an employer.

In my opinion, protean career is the best for me since I will be able to set own goals and will not be very dependent on my employer.

5) Career roadmap:

1. I study in college now. My major is HR, and I plan to work in this sphere in the future.
2. In order to achieve my goal, I will graduate in a year. I also want to attend different courses for HR specialists. It will be better to read professional books or get certificates.
3. I plan to study and work. I do not know what universities to choose and what to do with a family yet.
4. In 15-20 years from now, I plan to become a good specialist in HR sphere, for example, manager in HR department. My life model includes both work and personal life, and they have the same importance. Such model is good because my preferences relating to work and personal life are close, namely I like being with people.

Conclusion

To conclude, I am a communicative person, and I like teamwork and helping others. I chose HR as my major due to some reasons. I plan to work as an employee in HR department, but being a high-level manager is not for me. It is better for me to make decisions that satisfy others. In general, my personal features are good for my career plan. I will focus on protean career model. In 15-20 years from now, I want to become the HR specialist. In order to reach my goal, I should study more and acquire new knowledge and skills.