Early Studies on Career Stages

Working life of every individual passes through typical evolutionary phases called career stages. On the basis of various study of careers of a group, individuals from different occupational groups posit that every five to seven years, the individuals have to pass through some kind of personal or career related decisions with apparently a fairly predictive sequence. According to Super’s (1957) theory, there are three stages in a person’s vocational career over age 25-65 years: exploration, establishment, and maintenance. These career stages are based on the qualitatively different psychological task of each stage.

Levinson et al. (1978) believes that there is a close, but no perfect correspondence between chronological age and period of life development for both men and women. He has considered four different stages for career development namely Occupational and organizational Choice, early career, mid career and late career. Researcher identified four “life areas”: Childhood (0-20 yrs.), early adulthood (20-40 yrs.), middle adulthood (40-60 yrs.), and late adulthood (over 60 yrs.).

Super (1957, 1984) proposed a theory that people pass through specific career stages during their life span. These stages are characterized by various crucial activities and psychological adjustments which people have to make, no matter what their occupation or background is. According to researcher an individual before entering a particular organization or occupation passes through a ‘pre-employment stage’ during which he/she seeks out an occupation or organization that will cater to his or her needs, values, and aspirations. There is then an entry or ‘socialization stage’ during which individuals experience all aspects of the organization. Finally, there is an advancement stage during which individuals act to enhance, and then maintain their position or status.

Mowday et al. (1982) proposed three stages in the development of organizational commitment: a) the pre-entry stage; b) the early employment stage; and c) the middle and late-career stages in the organization. A slightly different model was suggested by Reichers (1986), who excluded the pre-employment stage and concentrated on three stages of development: early, mid, and late-career stages. Suzyn Ornstein, William L. Cron and John W. Slocum Jr. (1989) , has compared the career development models of Levinson et al. (1978) and Super (1957) by conducting a survey on 535 salespeople. He studied career stages, career attitudes and organizational commitment. The outcome of the study revealed the fact that, support was found for both models. The Levinson et at. model is more closely related to individuals' career decisions, while the Super model is more closely related to individual's job attitudes. Implications and future directions are proposed. Researchers argued that career stages can be based either on age or on organizational, positional or professional tenure. When tenure measures are used, the first two years are seen as a trial period. The period from two to ten years means establishment period in which an individual is concerned with career advancement and growth.

Brooks and Seers (1991) considered five stages as per age criteria i.e. 18-21, 22-27, 28-32, 33-40, 41 and older. The age ranges assigned for each stage have varied considerably between empirical studies, but usually the early-career stage is considered to range from the ages of 20 to 34 years, the mid-career from 35 to 50 years and the late-career from 50 to 65 years.

Donnelly (1994) has conducted a study on marketing persons and classified the career stages based on important needs and age of the employee. He also identified the main activities and job title poses by an employee. He classified career stages as early stage, middle career and later career. Roslyn Smart and Candida Peterson (1997) Conducted a study on 226 men and women those were about to start their second career to study examined Super’s (1990) concept of recycling through the stages of adult career development. His research concluded that Super’s concept of career ‘‘recycling’’ predicts that individuals who elect to change their main field of career activity part way into occupational life will pass through the full set of career stages for a second time, successively. On the contrary Bahtijarevic (1999) has classifies the career stages as per physical and logical content as dependency, Independency, taking over responsibility for others and showing power.