CAREERS:
beyond personal gain?
A career must be planned. Obviously. A plan requires a goal and a fair consideration of the means that can
be used to realize the goal. Time, energy and often some extra money are required to reach any reasonably
ambitious goal. When the goal is attractive enough, you should find yourself willing to work the extra mile.
That is probably why the goal itself is so much emphasized in the many resources available to those who are
in the process of planning their career.
TEXT: HENK ELLERMANN  ACADEMIC FORUM / TILBURG UNIVERSITY
One of those resources for example, a randomly picked website, advises
tracks if the circumstances change or when, for one reason or another,
you to start with a truly ambitious dream. Picture where you want to be
you want to reconsider your career goals. In any case, the future is the
in, say, ten years and don’t let practical considerations compromise your
place to be and ambition is the great transformer of time that will turn
dream. Once the dream is clear you need to start thinking about the path
the future into the present. One day.
that will you bring from where you are now to where you want to be. The
website claims that all successful people, whether they are athletes, artists
But, as we all know, there is no ambition that is not shared by others.
or businessmen, are incredibly (sic) goal oriented. Be like them and make
Especially when the dream is focussed on a rather specific function at the
short-term plans that somehow relate to your overall goal, and “go for it”.
top of a company or organization fierce competition is to be expected.
Find a mentor too, the site advises, to help you to stay on track or change
That is probably why sports metaphors are so often used by those who
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THERE IS NO AMBITION THAT IS
NOT SHARED BY OTHERS.
and they may bring you a good career, if only in retrospect. But this is
not a sure route to success either. The present is uncertain for the same
reasons that the future is. The undeniable turbulence in the organized
specialize in career planning. Single mindedness is good, a strong will is
world - whether in the commercial sector, in the world of government or
great, endurance fantastic and all that is not related to the goal is a dis-
in institutionalized science - may lead to an unexpected loss of a job, to
traction. If competition is one possible obstacle for making your dream
demotion, to the obligation to accept another less satisfying job, and one
true, it is not the only one. Bad luck is not as rare as one wants it to be and
of many other miseries. And I have not even mentioned personal misfor-
bankruptcies or reorganizations do occur frequently. Mishaps like that
tunes like illness and bad marriages. Focussing on the present to such a
may at the very least delay the realization of your dream considerably. The
degree that you lose sight of the future is anything but wise. Somehow
future indeed is a fickle horse that may drop dead right before your eyes.
you need to be aware of the perils of the present and of the options you
(still) have in this uncertain world for creating or maintaining a future of
Perhaps it pays to only have a vague dream. Don’t focus on becoming
wellbeing, financially as well as socially and personally. And you do need a
the CEO of the company you are currently working for and don’t expect
general focus to judge opportunities when they arise. Do you really want
to become full professor in your current field. Do focus on the work at
a career in management, in science, do you really want to be an expert
hand. A typical career planner might translate this into such work-ori-
in a certain field until the time you retire. Answers to such questions are
ented terms as: work hard in the here and now and whatever you do, do
needed. But which answers? And how do you decide between paths to
it as well as you can. Indeed, hard work and talent rarely go unnoticed
follow and paths to ignore?
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The strategy to follow - you will not have expected anything else - does
not exist. That doesn’t mean that no useful words can be said. But first,
let’s not fool ourselves and let us be clear what it is we are talking about.
IT IS NOT EASY TO TRANSCEND
THE INSTRUMENTALISM THAT UNDERLIES
SO MUCH OF OUR LIFE.
If you are very smart, if your genes or upbringing provided you with
enough stamina to work many hours, or if you have exceptional social
ning a career is cast in terms of personal well-being, personal fulfilment,
skills, then you there is little need to worry about the future. If our society
personal gain etcetera. The society at large is, more or less, presented as
seems to value anything it is talent. Meritocracy is the appropriate word
instrumental for your career. Like the invisible hand of Adam Smith in
for it. Excellence is one of the most frequent words in the mission state-
economics one seems to assume that your focus on your own career will
ments and long term plans of commercial companies, universities and
benefit the company, society or even mankind as a whole. This invisible
governmental agencies alike and if you provide personal excellence, you
hand is perhaps the ultimate justification of a meritocracy and for a strong
future is almost always a bright one. If, on the other hand, you lack any
focus on individual careers.
talent worthy of the name then all you can do is get a training and hope
for the best. In a sense these two groups, the very gifted and the, for lack
There were times when things were different. There were days when the
of a better word, ungifted, don’t need to think hard about their careers. It
world was a stable one. Not stable in the sense of economic prosperity,
is the rest of us that need to worry.
far from it, but stable in the sense of the organizations that more or less
defined public life, including your career. A person could do a menial job
Lack of talent, or perhaps lack of great talents, is a topic that is discussed
and still be really proud of this company and the other people working
in the literature in career planning, but the words used are a bit less brute
for it. In this context, I like the story told by an eminent sociologist about
than the ones I have used. One speaks of levels possibilities, of finding
his mother. She was a cleaning lady at a primary school and, very hard
jobs that match your skills, of realizing your full potential, etcetera. The
to imagine these days, darn proud of it. She did not hesitate to confront
strange thing however is that the scenarios that are developed for those
a teacher if he dared to make a mess of his classroom. She wanted a
with no or a few minor talents often resemble the scenarios employed
clean school. She identified with her school and despite her menial job,
for the highly gifted.
derived considerable pride out of belonging to that school, that identity,
The same sports metaphors are used. Be goal oriented, work hard, be
and community. It is hard to find a cleaning lady these days with the
aware of all the options and fight the competition when there is one. The
same attitude as this sociologists’ mother. It is not so much her career
single mindedness that is required of the person planning a career reoc-
that made this woman proud, it is the fact that she could identify with
curs in the single mindedness of those that support career planning. Plan-
her school, her organization, her company, or whatever.
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changing. Especially the corporate world. As said, and as has been said by
many others, the turbulence in the world of commerce requires corporations to be extremely flexible. Plans will and can change overnight. If new
opportunities arise one better seize them as soon as possible. If you are
not quick enough, someone else will win the battle.
PLANNING A CAREER IS AN
EXERCISE IN MEANING.
It sounds like increased pressure to perform, but actually it can be a blessing in disguise. It is here that we may find the key to transcend instrumentalism. To react quickly one needs flexible people. Flexibility requires
a broad perspective, a good feeling for what is needed or not and the
ability to learn, think and be creative, it requires an ability to choose and
judge. A specialist can be flexible only in selecting circumstances, a generalist can adjust himself and the circumstances when the need arises.
But flexibility is not just an ability to learn. Flexibility requires knowledge
that allows you to determine what to focus on and, perhaps most of all,
it requires a good feel for what is worthwhile. We need people that are
There is no need to glorify the past nor is any romantic desire to bring
“complete”. The often stated fact that there is less and less a separation
back the past justified. But it is necessary that to point out that even today
between working and living emphasizes that modern and future society
careers need not be developed in a vacuum, and need not be only about
requires people who don’t rigidly compartmentalize their hours in work,
planning a personal career, and need not see the infrastructure of society
family, pleasure, culture and sports, or what have you, but who can inte-
as merely instrumental for one’s own career. Indeed, the invisible hand
grate those aspects into one meaningful whole, and use ideas obtained
that might give meaning to all individual career paths taken together as
in one setting in another one.
one whole set, does not lead to clear determinations of values that gives
each individual career path a meaning. Irrespective of talent. Lacking a
It would require another article to detail all these developments. Here
context that gives meaning to almost any career there is room for creativ-
it suffices to not that, unless you are a firm believer in the instrumental-
ity in defining new values, values that give meaning to a life that is not
ism espoused above, life needs to be considered as one whole, that your
blessed with great talents, nor doomed by a total lack of it. What the new
career is part of your life and that your life is part of society as a whole.
values should do is what instrumentalism fails to do. Unless you are a firm
That is why planning a career should be a problematic in the context of
believer in meritocracy and in the meaningfulness of person-oriented
“the good life”. Again, it would require another article to describe what
careers, you may want to think about a broader meaning of and for your
wise philosophers have said about this topic but here I will just note that
career, think about your role in society at large, and let your values at least
much of value has been said. It is time to use those words. It is also fitting
co-determine your career.
for a modern person to discover those words by him or herself, and not
have them served in an article like this. Planning a career is an exercise in
It is not easy to transcend the instrumentalism that underlies so much
meaning. No more, no less.
of our life. The people who help you thinking about your career also did
not come up with their scenarios out of the blue. Their mode of working makes sense within the instrumental view on work, life and careers.
Working people indeed are judged more and more on the effectiveness
with which they contribute to the goals of a company or other organization. There is a clear obligation to “perform”. Monitoring performance has
become a standard feature of the policies of many, if not most, companies, universities and governmental agencies. It is therefore no wonder
that the career planning literature focuses on those features that will
make you pass as many monitoring tools as possible. But the world is
Academic Forum
where science meets society and life
Expand your horizons, take the time to reflect
www.tilburguniversity.edu/academicforum
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