Gold Nugget Coaching

(Continued from previous post.)

“Career is dead? “That can’t be,” you may say. “And I can prove it because with one click of my mouse and some  keystrokes I can go to careerbuilders.com or monster.com. And they’ve invested a fortune in helping CareerBuilders like me. They have career links all over their sites.”

Well, let’s set aside for a moment the possibility that their businesses may be built on a concept that’s first and foremost designed to generate profits (for them). Instead, let’s consider the question, “Is career as an institution dead?”

Whether you’re in middlescence, looking for career change ideas for 40 and over, looking for midlife career change help, or whatever your interest, you’ll benefit from being clear about “career” in the 21st century.

So who says career is dead?

It’s not just me, Dr. Steve. The premise that career is dead was first put forth several years ago by consultants and social scientists Fernando Flores and John Gray, then examined further by Peter J. Denning.

At the heart of their assessment that “career is dead” is the traditional concept of career being a single job at one company, held for most of your working life. That may have been true for previous generations, but it doesn’t take much to see that for most working people today that idea is completely obsolete.

So if you’re thinking and acting like you’re working on your career, can you see that what you’re working on probably doesn’t exist anymore and, worse, will probably never exist in this day and age? Can you see that working on something that can never happen may not be the most effective thing for reaching your goals?

But what would be effective? What, if anything, replaces the old concept of “career”?

I’ll answer these questions  next time.

 © 2006 Gold Nugget Coaching

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