Second Careers

Contemporary careers and labor markets are dynamic and less stable than in the past. Employees are more self-reliant and innovative in order to advance their own career paths. People tend to employ adaptive schemes in order to move from job to job or from occupation to occupation. Adaptation is indicated by success, satisfaction, and development. Currently, the aging segment of the labor market is an important part of the global workforce. Older workers tend to be motivated less by career progression and more by intrinsic rewards. Their professional vitality is associated positively with career and life satisfaction and negatively with staffing turnover intentions in work. The vitality function is an inverted U shape that peaks around a person's fifties. Decision makers, managers, and especially human resources managers need to be ready to manage workers who leave and enter an organizations at various career stages. At the society level, training and education should be fitted to various age levels

Professional vitality and career success: mediation, age and outcomes

We propose a model that explains the complex phenomenon of successful career at work, and focuses on the antecedents of professional vitality at the workplace. The model sheds light on the role of professional vitality as an essential ingredient for successful careers. Using a survey design, we tested our model with a sample of 545 managers and professionals. The findings suggest effects of career attitudes on career outcomes, mediated by professional vitality. The relationship between professional vitality and age at work environment forms an inverse U shape curve, peaking at age of fifties, an optimistic note for the global aging workforc

Career transitions: an empirical examination of second career of military retirees

We examined the prospects of successful career transition from the defense forces and into the dynamic and turbulent civilian career, focusing on possible antecedents for success in the second career. Based on a sample of 202 high level retirees from military and civilian defense organizations in Israel, our results indicate that preparations for retirement, social capital, perception of organizational politics in the new working place and work-family conflict are related to the dependent variables and affect the retiree's success in their second career. In addition, organizational commitment was found to serve as a mediator in these relationships. Implications for theory of career development and change, as well as practical implications and recommendations for future studies, are discussed

Career attitudes and success of managers: the impact of chance event, protean, and traditional careers

We propose a career model that focuses on the antecedents of career success for managers and professionals within organizations. The model includes constructs rarely represented in the literature, and is based on conservation of resources theory. Testing our model with a sample of 545 managers, we found significant effect of positive and negative social capital, perception of organizational politics, professional vitality, and protean career attitude on internal and external career success, mediated by organizational commitment and met expectations, and moderated by chance event effect. This original contribution includes incorporating new constructs and concentrates upon factors enabling support for successful careers