Donald Super Concept

Career development is comprised of three main objectives. The first objective is to meet human resource needs in a timely manner throughout the life of the business. The second objective is to provide information about open positions and opportunity for growth to the organization’s employees. The last objective is to use existing programs to develop and manage employee careers to match organizational plans and goals.

According to Niles & Harris (2013), Donald Super developed his theory segmentally. There is no ‘Super’s theory’; there is just the assemblage of theories that Super sought to synthesize. The result is really a “segmental theory” describing three key aspects of career development: (a) life span, (b) life space, and (c) self-concept. The theory culminates in an intervention model labeled as the Career Development Assessment and Counseling (C-DAC) model.

During the interview, Stashia presented issues of career changed frequently as she diverted from majoring in one career path to another. She divulged in the interview that she had once listened to others and not decided on her own path. She reported changing her major, considered doing things differently if she could, and not having taken any vocational assessments that would have helped her. The writer will conceptualize interviewees barriers with theories of career counseling.

The following essay will use a lifespan perspective to discuss how major transitions can influence both occupational and personal development. Using occupation as a coping strategy during stressful transitions will also be explored. The narrative discussed was derived from an informal, semi-structured interview. Occupational development will explore how the meanings associated with occupations can change and how this can be reflective of their current life-stage. The essay will begin with an outline of the precautions taken to maintain the interviewee’s confidentiality. This will be followed by a brief explanation of the lifespan and occupational models that will be used throughout the essay. A summary of the interviewee’s narrative will then be provided. This will be expanded upon by using lifespan theories.

My chosen career path is to be a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Therapist and proceed to graduate school to become an Occupational Therapist. Lifespan can affect my career depending on what age group I am working with. For example, the older generation is now living longer so I must acquire the skills to assist their leisure and recreational needs because not many adaptions have been made. If I am working with a person who is 80 years old and wants to ability to paint her nails again, I will have to adapt the tools I am given so she can grip the nail polish handle again. When I am working with kids I must be aware of what stage they are at in life. If they are in preoperational stage they won’t have the ability to think how others feel. Also, knowing that they are in this stage I can utilize what activities we do because this stage they are known for engaging in a lot of symbolic play. Lastly, lifespan development influences my career because it helps me understand who they are and why they act the way they do. If a young girl has an eating disorder, I could find the what’s causing it. I might find out she hit puberty earlier triggering this behavior and can help her cope with that. Therefore, by understanding my client’s background I can personalize the therapy to meet her needs.

Career development is a continuous process of handling proactively work and changes in life in order to move forward and reach the goals set for a better future. It involves learning new skills, moving up in the position within the organization or altogether moving to new organization or even starting up a new business. A career development plan is created to set goals and how to reach these goals using your talents and skills in the working world. A five year plan is ideal to start with, as five years are enough to reach bigger goals while working for and achieving smaller goals.

Career development is not just beneficial to the organisation. The impact it has on an employee is valuable as well. It allows for the employee to align career goals with personal goals.

Savickas (2013) discussed the life design model to narrative career counseling, as it pertains to individuals already involved in a career. He stated that this model assists

A brief background overview on a few career development theories will help direct this literature review and give a foundation to current theories in career development. Career development is a complex, lifelong process that is influenced by a variety of factors. Niles and Harris-Bowlsbey (2005) defined career development as “the lifelong psychological and behavioral processes as well as contextual influences shaping one’s career over the life span” (p. 12). Although there are many career development theories, this literature review will focus on just a few. Donald Super’s Life-Span, Life-Space Career Theory highlights the “complex and multifaceted nature of career development” (Niles & Hutchinson, 2009, p. 69). Super’s theory builds upon 14 assumptions and supports three key aspects of career development: life-span, life-space, and self-concept (Niles & Hutchinson, 2009). Life-span focuses on the development over one’s life through growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance, and

In the beginning, career counseling was strictly developed to help with job placement, but it became so much more than that after the career development was further researched by a group of theorist that focused on career process. What is it that drives us to choose a specific career path? According to Zunker (2012), different theorists such as Parsons, Holland, Krumboltz, Bandura, Super, and Gottfredson all developed theories on career development and their perspective on the importance of occupational process. Throughout this paper one will discuss the John Holland’s Typology and the significance of this particular career theory. Some of the points that will be covered in this paper include: history of theory, strengths and weaknesses, assessments used, population best fit for this theory, and diversity and

According to Mondy and Noe (2005), career is a job that has been chosen to be accomplished during one’s working life. Career is the progress and actions of the person’s occupations or sequence of jobs held by someone throughout a lifetime which is until that person end up the careers. Most of the situations, people do not just referring to one position only but often looking for another jobs which composed of the jobs held, titles earned and work accomplished over a long period of time. There is an increasing trend to employees changing jobs more frequently, while employees in some cultures and economies stay with one job during their career. For example, an individual's career could involve being an engineer, though the

Super’s Life Span Theory is one of several developmental theories. Developmental theories are concerned with career choices made over an individual’s lifetime. They are based around the influence that biological, psychological, sociological, and cultural factors have on career decisions as well as other choices that are made in a person’s life. Super’s Theory is different from other developmental theories because it proposes that psychological and socioeconomic factors have a role in the development of the self, that self-concept affects vocational development, that both individual and life roles play a key part in

Gysbers (2003) proposes that the value of career theories comes from providing practitioners with a framework to examine client behaviour, help understand the possible meanings of or explanations for the behaviour and subsequently, enables them to identify and respond to clients’ goals or problems. Significantly then, such theories may help explain an individual’s vocational behaviour, such as their initial career choice or later aspects of career development. This essay attempts to identify the theoretical framework that will underpin my guidance practice in the future.

Career progression is the aim for most workers, but career development is not something most of us think regularly. But without proper understanding of what we want from our career and how we can achieve our goals quicker, we can quickly end up dissatisfied with our jobs.

A personal development plan helps in identifying potentials and competencies in one's personality and finding a good match of these potentials and competencies with his long term professional goals. This paper presents all the essential steps which must be included in personal development planning process; including identification of potentials and capabilities, testing the abilities and skills, answering all the potential questions which arise when someone tries to choose his professional career, selecting the future goals and defining the roadmap to achieve those goals, collecting and analyzing relevant information for an effective decision making, academic and professional advantages of personal development, and the personal development matrix to identify short term and long term goals.