#mid-career

Benefits of an Executive MBA for working professionals | SPJIMR

One of the most challenging decisions I struggled with was understanding why my Career had hit a slump and the real reason behind it. So, I did what most of us would do; I blamed everything that I could list and name I remain deeply sunk in my pity party and feel I deserve it ( the only thing in life which I own so well-“self pity” ) I remained constantly overthinking all the time, with a…

Mid-Career Crisis: Why Some Sail Through While Others Don't A series of business stories about mid-career events that influence the future directions of #careerDevelopment. #BookReview #ScottsBookReview

Early career development gets the bulk of social attention, and rightly so because starting a career takes work. Failure to do so can lead to vast social and economic consequences. But the middle of a career also deserves some attention, as Basu points out in this book. It has its own host of crises. Successful resolution of these can lead to even greater career fulfillment in later days; failure…

“While upskilling mid-career workers has emerged as a major policy priority, many existing programs take a one-size-fits-all approach that fails to consider local demand or the interests and needs of specific job seekers and employers ... designing successful training or talent matching programs requires an understanding of factors that extend beyond skills, ranging from occupational licensing and credential requirements, to how employers recruit people, and an individual’s capacity and willingness to take on certain kinds of work, embark on a retraining journey, or move to a new location.”

“‘Canada needs smarter, data-informed services, policies, and digital tools to better match the supply of skills with demand across the economy,” says Sarah Doyle, Director of Policy + Research at the Brookfield Institute. “But labour market data won’t give us the full picture. Our research adds the human dimension.’”

Brookfield Institute, October 23, 2019: “Lost and Found: Pathways from disruption to employment”

Brookfield Institute, October 2019: “Lost and Found: Pathways from disruption to employment” (49 pages, PDF) 

A playbook to connect people looking for jobs with employers looking for people

“Upskilling mid-career workers has emerged as a major policy priority. However, many existing programs take a one-size-fits-all approach that often doesn’t consider local demand or the interests and needs of specific job seekers and employers. ... Lost and Found: Pathways from disruption to employment, presents a model that uses labour market information to identify potential pathways from declining jobs to ones that are growing ... [and] created a playbook for policymakers, workforce developers, employers, and service providers who are looking to explore how this model could be applied in different use cases. ...  Enabling people to make successful job transitions will need new solutions and partnerships as well as a process of evaluation and iteration.”

I just updated the blog.  This week we look into mid-career dissatisfaction and how to be happier with your work.

Attitude is an outcome of certain beliefs or experiences that make us look at things a certain way. It defines the way we perceive issues and people, and even the way we lead our personal life. It is a state of mind and it is up to us to define it the way we want. Thus, we oft en define attitude as positive or negative based on the current state of mind. During the mid-career, when we have a confused state of mind, we often tend to rely on a negative attitude since we are victims of many myths. Many a times, we have mixed feelings, unable to have a clear view since many components are at play to define our attitude. It can be about how we feel about an issue or person, linking it to an emotional component, or it may be our past learnings or beliefs. However, we can often notice an explicit behavioural change in us.

After many years of being part of an organization, one tends to become comfortable in his or her position during the mid-career. At this stage, our mind seems to prefer known zones to unknown ones. It is the couch potato syndrome—due to our level of comfort, it becomes difficult for us to leave that organization or role.

On the other hand, we want to look ahead and explore new areas as we realize that given the experience we have, we are equipped to embrace new challenges. Unfortunately, due to a confused mind, many of us do not dare to explore a new arena and thus, knowingly or unknowingly, we slip into a comfort zone, start accepting the way our career is moving and decide not to challenge the status quo. Hence, we allow opportunities to drift away.