Traditional Career Stages
One traditional way to analyze and discuss careers is to consider them in stages or
steps.28 Progress from a beginning point through growth and decline phases to a termination
point is typical in one’s work life. Most of us begin to form our careers during
our early school years. Our careers begin to wind down as we reach retirement age.
We can identify five career stages typical for most adults, regardless of occupation:
exploration, establishment, mid-career, late career, and decline. These stages are portrayed
in Exhibit 9-2.
The age ranges for each stage in Exhibit 9-2 are intended only to show general
guidelines. Although this model may seem overly simplistic, the key is to give primary
attention to the stages rather than the age categories. For instance, someone
who makes a dramatic change in career to undertake a completely different line of
work at age forty-five will have many of the same establishment-stage concerns as
someone starting at age twenty-five. On the other hand, if the forty-five-year-old
started working at twenty-five, he or she now has twenty years of experience, as well
as interests and expectations that differ from those of a peer just starting a career at
middle age. Of course, if the forty-five-year-old individual is a newly admitted college
student who starts college once her children have grown, she will have more in
common—regarding career stages—with the twenty-three-year-old sitting next to
her than she will with the forty-five-year-old full professor teaching the class. So,
don’t get hung up on the age generalizations in Exhibit 9-2. They are simply points
of reference.