Career Development and Planning: A Comprehensive Approach

Abstract

Career Development and Planning: A Comprehensive Approach by Robert C. Reardon, Ph.D.; Janet G. Lenz, Ph.D.; James P. Sampson, Jr., Ph.D.; & Gary W. Peterson, Ph.D. (2006, Thomson Publishing, US Division, 323 pages, Soft Cover, $71.95) Intended Audience: F, G Major Headings from Table of Contents: Career Concepts and Applications; Social Conditions Affecting Career Development; Implementing a Strategic Career Plan. How is the book most useful for its intended audience? This textbook provides instructors and students with a knowledge base drawn from cognitive psychology that can be used to solve career problems and make career decisions. The top five things you learned from reading this book: 1 . The theoretical base of cognitive information processing, including the Pyramid of Information-Processing Domain and the CASVE Cycle, and how it applies to all aspects of the career process. 2. Understanding the multidisciplinary nature of information in the career and work behavior areas and how individual people process that information. 3. A depth of knowledge on the current social conditions affecting career development. 4. Implementing strategic career thinking into the process of career development. 5. A stronger foundation in implementing a strategic career search campaign. Career Development and Planning: A Comprehensive Approach is a book designed as the foundation text for a college-level course on Career Development. It is based in cognitive psychology and keeps that focus throughout the book. The book is separated into three parts: Career Concepts and Applications; Social Conditions Affecting Career Development; and Implementing a Strategic Career Plan. Part I-Career Concepts and Applications The first section of this book provides a focus on cognitive information processing theory as well as providing practical examples of the application of that theory. The Introduction chapter looks at a brief history of career problem solving and decision making. It clearly defines the terms used so that a student will have a clearer understanding of terms that they may be misusing. An example is Career Development: The total constellation of economic, sociological, psychological, educational, physical, and chance factors that combine to shape one's career. The Information-Processing Pyramid is introduced in this chapter and is used throughout the book as it looks at the key factors of Self-Knowledge and Occupational Knowledge that form the base of the pyramid in the Knowledge Domains. The center of the pyramid is the Career Decision-Making Domain of CASVE (Communication, Analysis, Synthesis, Valuing, and Execution). The top of the pyramid is the Executive Processing Domain of Meta-Cognitions. The next four chapters are devoted to looking at each of these areas of the pyramid. In the Knowing About Myself chapter, the cornerstones of personal career development are covered with the self-knowledge tools of values, interests (including Holland's Codes, ???, World of Work Map), and skills that include looking at the nine basic general skills that transcend any specific job. Knowing About My Options defines occupational knowledge and how one might learn about the occupations in the world. The book gave examples of different work classification categories. It also touched on the importance of academic preparation for those occupations. Career Decision-Making looked more at the psychological components involved in the decision-making process. It outlined the CASVE Cycle in detail and showed how one might use this process to make a career decision. The most interesting chapter in Part I was the chapter on MetaCognitions and the Executive Processing Domain. …

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