Career Life Stages for Women

Career Life Stages

This is not going to be a blog with any deep meaning. The idea is to construct a board game wherein the issues women face in trying to become directors and senior board members. As noted in previous blogs, there are a few Board games which will inform this one. 

• Careers Board Game by Parker Brothers
• The Game of Networking
• The Game of Life

What do we learn from each of these games?

One's career is divided into 5 distinct, but in some cases , overlapping areas including:

1. Pre-professional
2. Entry level
3. Mid level
4. Senior level
5. Leadership

The goal of the game is to develop awareness of:

1. the importance of establishing clear career goals and staying focused on those goals;
2. establishing first contacts;
3.  career options as a director, and what careers might be best to enable you, the player to get a leadership position on a corporate board;
4. the best strategies to employ to help the player advance;
5. how to negotiate through certain steps when the player is presented not only with opportunities but also with barriers;
6. the best outcome for,  or solution to,  each challenge. 

This game would move the player through a number of different processes vital to career networking with other players. 

Think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and put one's career in a similar pyramid. 

1.  Operational. So, the earliest step possible within a career trajectory.
2. Functional
3. From here a careerist might move in one of 2 directions depending on her qualifications, interests, experiences and expertise. She might choose a professional career path or a management career path.
4. If she chooses a professional career path, she might consider serving as an "expert" consultant in a particular sector or industry. This provides considerable career flexibility allowing her to move between sectors, including working at senior levels in the public service. 
5. If she chooses a management career path and depending on her interests, she may choose to be a manager (or at least go the supervisory route in her career). In which case she moves to a 1st line supervisor, mid manager, senior manager and then into the C-suite. Typically, this would keep her in one sector, one industry but not necessarily in one company. 

It is important to recognize that there are victory points along the way including:

• money;
• recognition within an industry, within a sector, within a company, within a profession;
• authority. In this latter, one may also get points for how she helps colleagues, mentors and , in some cases, sponsors (at later stages in the game.