Life and Career Planning: Current Challenges

Abstract

Contemporary changes have direct repercussions on professional careers and unavoidable implications on the individual career relationship. In this line, changes and transitions in professional careers have posed to individuals several challenges involving professional and personal dimensions. The traditional view on career, which considers that its development occurs through vertical mobilization in the organizational hierarchy, is being replaced by the concept that career is no longer an employment relationship, being displaced to the individual and his/her relationship networks. In this new perspective, the core axis focuses on career self-management, demanding a new profile of technical and relational competences and also considering the interface between career and the individuals’ life plan. This new vision involves professional and personal links, capabilities, individuals’ capacities, skills in decision-making processes, and networks of personal and professional support.