The Career is Dead - Long Live the Career!

Careers as we know them have died. The career as a series of upward moves, with steadily increasing income, power, status, and security is now a thing of the past. At the same time, people will always have work lives that will unfold over time, and if we define careers as a series of lifelong work-related experiences and personal learnings, the career will never die. The old "career contract" of security achieved through educational attainments, job status, and long-term organizational memberships is lost and mourned. In its place, the "new career contract" is one in which the individual responds to customer needs, continuously learns in relation to others, and develops new competencies as the business environment changes. Lack of individual security in the current organizational environment means that safety must now come from inside - including the individual ability to marshal resources from the "outside". The contributors to this volume argue that among the most important of these outside resources is other people, and that the most significant source of learning and growth is in relationships.