The preliminary stage includes school, secondary and higher education and lasts up to 25 years. During this period, a person can change several different jobs in search of an activity that satisfies his needs and meets his capabilities.
Next comes the formation stage, which lasts approximately five years from 25 to 30. During this period, the employee masters the profession, acquires the necessary skills, his qualifications are formed, self-affirmation occurs and the need to establish independence appears.
The advancement stagelasts from 30 to 45 years. During this period, there is a process of growth in qualifications and career advancement. There is an accumulation of practical experience and skills, a growing need for self-affirmation, achieving a higher status and even greater independence, and self-expression as an individual begins.
conservation stage is characterized by actions to consolidate the achieved results and lasts from 45 to 60 years. The peak of improvement of qualifications is coming and its increase occurs as a result of active work and special training; the employee is interested in passing on his knowledge to young people. This period is characterized by creativity; there may be an ascent to new career levels. A person reaches the heights of independence and self-expression. A well-deserved respect for oneself and others who have achieved their position through honest work appears.
completion stage lasts from 60 to 65 years. Here a person begins to seriously think about retirement and prepare to retire. During this period, there is an active search for a worthy replacement and training of a candidate for the vacant position. Although this period is characterized by a career crisis and such people receive less and less satisfaction from work and experience a state of psychological and physiological discomfort, self-expression and respect for themselves and other similar people reaches the highest point for the entire period of their career. They are interested in maintaining the level of wages, but seek to increase other sources of income that would replace the wages of this organization when they retire and would be a good addition to the pension benefit.
At the last stage, the retirement stage, the career in this organization (type of activity) is completed. There is an opportunity for self-expression in other types of activities that were impossible during the period of work in the organization or acted as a hobby (painting, gardening, work in public organizations, etc.). Respect for oneself and fellow retirees is stabilized. But the financial situation and state of health in these years can make it a constant concern for other sources of income and health.
However, the career stage (as a point on the time axis) is not always associated with the stage of professional development. A person who is at the stage of advancement within another profession may not yet be a high professional. Therefore, it is important to separate the career stage (the time period of personal development) and the professional development phases (periods of mastering the activity). In accordance with the phases of development of a professional, there are:
optant (option phase). A person is concerned about choosing or being forced to change a profession and makes this choice. There cannot be exact technological boundaries here, as in relation to other phrases, because age characteristics are determined not only by physiological, but also by cultural conditions:
adept (adept phase). This is a person who has already taken the path of commitment to the profession and is mastering it. Depending on the profession, this can be a long-term or very short-term process (for example, simple instruction);
adapter (phase of adaptation, getting used to work by a young specialist). No matter how well the process of training a particular professional is organized in an educational institution, it never fits “like a key to a lock” to production work;
internal (internal phase). An experienced worker who loves his job and can independently, more and more reliably and successfully cope with basic professional functions, which is recognized by his fellow workers and professions;
master (ongoing mastery phase). An employee can solve both simple and the most difficult professional tasks, which, perhaps, not all colleagues can handle;
authority (the authority phase, like the mastery phase, is also summed up with the subsequent one ). A master of his craft, already well known in the professional circle or even outside it (in the industry, in the country). Depending on the forms of employee certification accepted in a given profession, he has certain high qualification indicators;
mentor (mentoring phase). An authoritative master of his craft, in any profession, “grows” with like-minded people, adopters of experience, and students.