Category: AI

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AI Employability Open Diary

Protean Career A Bibliographic Review

Since the beginning, my career has been oriented towards the field of people and culture. When I started my psychology degree and got my first internship in HR (2010), I was fascinated by the universe that opened up, blending business, marketing, and technology with human behaviour. But it was only a few years ago, during my master’s (2019), that I began to take an interest in career management.

The field of Human Resources has similarities with career management, to the extent that a quite natural move for HR professionals, after years of dedication to HR, is to transition to the field of career management. Both deal with the work relationship between individuals and companies, but each has a specific interest and perspective:

  • The HR management perspective works for a company. The goal is to get employees to deliver the maximum value to a corporation. To achieve this, they recruit the best employees, train their skills, and motivate them to stay and produce more.
  • The career management perspective works for the employees/professionals. The goal is to make companies/clients see the maximum value in them, developing the employability and brand of the individual.

During my master’s, I came across a human resources management author who introduced the term “Protean Career” for the first time. According to Hall (1976), there is a tendency in people to use their own success criteria, usually focusing on self-realization and happiness, as opposed to the values emphasized in the traditional career era where the focus was on external conditions such as salary, hierarchical level, and status. From this perspective, a career is seen as a sequence of lifelong work experiences that enable personal satisfaction and psychological success.

With this career view, Hall (1976) developed the concept of the Protean Career, in analogy to the mythological figure Proteus, who has the ability to change shape at will. People start to value the freedom to develop and find challenges not only in a wide variety of companies but also in all spheres of human experience. The shift toward personal fulfilment is its core value.

In this perspective, a career should be reinvented from time to time and becomes directed by individuals rather than organizations.

The Protean Career requires organizations to have a humanized and flexible management, considering the individual needs and values of each professional. From the professionals’ perspective, it should be seen as one where the individual is responsible for constant improvement, knowledge, self-awareness, as well as the ability to adapt to changes due to personal needs or environmental circumstances.

The Protean Career is shaped by the individual’s own needs, goals, and values, not by organizational structures or received ideas from a company’s professional development programs.

In this historical moment where AI manages a significant portion of operational and repetitive tasks, the Protean Career model becomes even more advantageous. Lifelong learning remains paramount, emphasizing the importance of self-directed and relational learning in facing professional challenges. The essence lies in cultivating a diverse repertoire, where the ability to pose insightful questions outweighs the mere possession of answers, given that AI is readily available to provide them. In the Protean Career, the focus shifts from owning knowledge to mastering the art of questioning, enabling continuous adaptation and a proactive approach to change.

Success factors have changed from:

know-how ———-> learn-how

job security ———> employability

work self ———> whole self

  • Work is an important part of your personal identity. For example, you can reinvent yourself and reshape your work and career around family priorities.
  • The main goal is always a psychological success: feeling well is a priority. Being well, we solve the rest.

It’s worth arguing, however, that although the Protean Career approach emphasizes that individuals should be responsible for their career development and that people start to seek and value psychological success, not all workers have the necessary requirements to assume a career with these characteristics, as they feel the need for external support (Hall, 2002).

With this perspective and inspiration, I have been developing my own career self-management model based on three pillars:

  • Mental health at work and emotional intelligence.
  • Productivity: organization, execution, and planning.
  • Employability.

The objective is to provide a holistic career self-management system encompassing methodologies, habits, and tools. I’ve been offering this solution for approximately 3 years through weekly meetings, with the process spanning around 1 year for each professional.

This is a dynamic system continually refined through my ongoing learning and experiences. You can explore the framework here.

References:

Enache, M. , Sallan, J. M. , Simo, P. , & Fernandez, V. (2011). Examining the impact of protean and boundaryless career attitudes upon subjective career success. Journal of Management & Organization, 17(4),459-473.

Gerber, M, Wittekind, A, Grote, G, Conway, N. , & Guest, D (2009). Generalizability of career orientations: A comparative study in Switzerland and Great Britain. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 82(4),779-801.

Hall, D. T. (1976). Careers in Organizations. California: Goodyear Pub, Pacific Palisades.

Hall, D. T. , & Mirvis, P. H. (1995). The New Career Contract – Developing The Whole Person At Midlife And Beyond. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 47(3),269-289.

Hall, D. T. , & Mirvis, P. H. (1996). Long live the career. In The career is dead – Long live the career; 1-12, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

Hall, D. T. , & Moss, J. E. (1998). The new Protean career contract: Helping organizations and employees adapt. Organizational Dynamics, 26(3),22-37.

Hall, D. T. (2002). Careers in and out organizations. London: Sage Publications.

Hall, D. T. (2004). The protean career: A quarter-century journey. Vocational Behavior, 65,1-13

Inkson, K. (2006). Protean and boundaryless careers as metaphors. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 69(1),48-63

McDonald P. , Brown K. , & Bradley, L. (2005). Have traditional career paths given way to protean ones? Evidence from senior managers in the Australian public sector. Career Development International, 10,109-129.

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AI Employability Leadership and HR

The Future of the Job Market: Some Bets and Obvious Truths

There are few certainties in life, but at least in the professional arena, one thing is for sure: the market is constantly evolving in ways no one can predict.

So, how do you navigate your career in such an uncertain scenario?

The most crucial mantra in this undoubtedly is: “Don’t let companies decide your path for you.” One-third of our day is spent working, and over 40 years of our lives, on average, are dedicated to our careers. It’s a steep price to pay to delegate to a third party, whose interests are vastly different from yours, deciding how your literal life’s time will be spent.

You’re not just selling our skilled labour, human. You’re selling your lifetime that we could better spend in the precious presence of a cat

For those who have been in the market for a little longer, around 10 years, they haven’t escaped unscathed from the idealized notion of a predictable and linear career path. Deep down, many still harbour this expectation, or at least it’s where they find the most familiarity. Today, we understand that the process has become increasingly complex, and the speed of change has forced adaptability to an unprecedented level. Many of the professions we now recruit in HR didn’t exist five years ago, or if they did, the required competencies were entirely different.

Career planning in this context has more to do with adaptability to the terrain than an idealized and predictable plan. You can’t sketch a 5-year career plan if you don’t know the terrain you’re entering.

In addition to adaptability, today’s professional aiming for career acceleration must be concerned with two fronts and act ambidextrously:

  • Delivering the present, what is asked, your current project, procedures, and routine;
  • Pushing a new frontier, expanding. What’s the next skill in my field? Being more provocative and a builder of the future in your area. Finding more efficient ways of execution.

Furthermore, three current movements should be considered when thinking strategically about your career:

  1. Artificial intelligence as part of our daily work. A year ago, no one talked about Chat-GPT, for example, and now it’s involved in all areas within a company. It’s a new must-have, there is no escape.
  2. Consequently, this forces new patterns of consumption and customer expectations. The customer knows more about how much their money is worth. They have the power of comparison. It’s much more challenging to serve a customer today than it was 10 years ago.
  3. Technology shapes new customers who form new ways of managing.

The modern professional is constantly pushing the boundaries, finding new frontiers and seeking cheaper, faster, and more effective ways of execution. Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a key role in facilitating this. AI is no longer just an IT guy thing, it has become one of the most basic competencies, just like the new Office suite. From HR to logistics, everyone must now understand AI and its potential applications.

So how to combine my professional skills with AI?

Will technology replace humans entirely? No, but it will do more than the average human does. I am excellent at communicating compassionately. AI can’t communicate like me, but does the average human know how to communicate compassionately? No. So, AI excels better than the average human in empathetic communication. But I am secure in this skill.

Does that scare or reassure you?

The possible solution is: don’t be average at everything; find something that makes you above average. Dive deep into it; you’ll be happier, fulfilled, and employed.

AI is good at providing answers, but we must specialize in asking questions. To ask good questions, you need repertoire, curiosity, and openness to the new. Where can I get that? By accessing things beyond the average — reading the unpopular book, following the less talked-about news, taking the less fancy course, and serving the client everyone avoids.

The only safety net is our constant repertoire of knowledge—updating, challenging ourselves, taking charge of our career management, building new frontiers, experimenting, engaging in difficult conversations, tolerating the pain of change, and acknowledging that change is imperative. With these elements, a career plan is less important than being prepared.

Categories
AI Employability

Blogs, Cover Letter, ChatGPT and the Budismo

The blogosphere has seen many phases, we know.

Back in the day, we had the avant-garde phase; in 1999, there were only 23 blogs. However, it was in the 2000s that things started to escalate. Those who experienced that era know it well—blogs were delightful, with a distinctly personal and intimate character, akin to an open diary. They communicated with the only intention of sharing, and creating records, without an ulterior motive or strategy behind every word. There was no planning, no traffic strategy, let alone brand archetype construction.

I’m the ruler, buy from me

Between 2005 and 2008, blogs gained more visibility due to their organic impact on the audience. I remember in 2007 I would never buy a shampoo without first researching what my favorite bloggers had to say about it. Of course, they didn’t earn a penny from it; they bought the product and provided a sincere review. I recall a brand called Bepantol, originally a baby ointment, but bloggers recommended it for hair treatment. Due to the surge in product sales, the brand revamped its packaging, price, and brand strategy, transforming from a modest diaper ointment to a complete hair treatment line—all thanks to bloggers who didn’t earn a dime from it.

We know where this was heading, right? Around 2008, blogs started being seen as an opportunity for manufacturing value for brands, becoming just another source of traditional information. Naturally, this led to them becoming dull, predictable, and repetitive.

Currently, there is a massive influx of blogs, especially corporate ones, with a singular purpose: conversion. Few personal blogs offer a genuine perspective, with the aroma and taste of real life, with its unpredictability and unique perspective.

Contents with personal experience are often found on other platforms like Instagram and YouTube. Do you need help with the introduction between two cats? There are hundreds of YouTube channels providing tutorials, but maybe two or three blogs in Portuguese with quality and in-depth content. Moving to a not-so-popular country? Two or three blogs with posts from 2015 might be the deepest and most personal content you’ll find. I feel like most of the content on the internet today is superficial, offering obvious advice that barely extends beyond page 2. The content caters to the masses — shallow, obvious, and cliché.

Corporate blogs seem more like copy-paste with word substitutions, almost like what we used to do in school when copying an assignment. The worst part is that it works for them: they sell. We are neck-deep in superficial, obvious, and repetitive information that feeds on itself. The writing for these blogs often follows a similar pattern, produced by non-experts. It’s common to reach the end of an article and realize it wasn’t written by an expert but by a journalist.

And to add to the mix, we have the arrival of ChatGPT.

As a frequent user and consumer of content produced by ChatGPT, its modus operandi is easily identified.

Working in human resources, I see how the automation of this tool, when not used carefully, makes us miss opportunities. When someone applies for a job, a cover letter is frequently requested. This document is a chance for the candidate to stand out beyond the resume, showcasing enthusiasm, energy, and motivation for the company and the open position. Where’s the problem? It’s when people use standard, robotic, and predictable technology to try to surprise, evoke emotion, and captivate. Needless to say, this doesn’t work.

I read several cover letters a day, and currently, almost 100% of them are written by ChatGPT — meaning they all say the same thing. Much like the texts from corporate blogs, just changing the subject and nouns. There’s no enthusiasm, colour, personality, drama… life.

Getting a job is hard work. And worse, it’s unpaid. Often, we don’t even receive a response to an application that took hours to prepare. ChatGPT has been a lifesaver for this.

Yeeah. We can’t write enthusiastic, energetic, and personalized letters to every job offer, Karina, wake up.

Yes, I know.

This complexity between these two choices reminds me of the teachings of Buddhism, the philosophy that seeks the “middle way” as the key. Buddhism teaches us to navigate between extremes, find harmony amid polarities, and embrace the serenity that resides in balance.

But there’s also no perfect balance, little grasshopper.

Chat-GPT plays its role in content generation beautifully, but the other genuinely human, sensitive, and touching part (fortunately) cannot be replaced.

Don’t forget to do your part in the work, human.

Only then can you extract the best from these digital tools. The magic happens in the pursuit (not attainment) of the subtle balance between these two polarities.