CARE E R PLAN N IN G. Tom Walker a 52-year-old retail store manager earning $90,000 a year, worked for the same company during his entire 25-year career. Tom was laid off and is still unemployed 10 months later, and his severance pay and unemployment compensation have run out. Because he adopted careful financial planning practices, he now has sufficient savings and investments to carry him through several months of unemployment. Tom is actively seeking work but finds that he is overqualified for available, lower-paying jobs and underqualified for higher-paying, more desirable positions. There are no openings for positions equivalent to the manager’s job he lost. He lost his wife several years earlier and is very close to his two grown children, who live in the same city.

Tom has these options:

● Keep looking for a new job.

● Move to another area of the country where store manager positions are more plentiful.

● Accept a lower-paying job for two or three years and then go back to school evenings to finish his college degree and qualify for a better position.

● Consider other types of jobs that could benefit from his managerial skills.

a. What important career factors should Tom consider when evaluating his options?

b. What important personal factors should he consider when deciding among his career options?

c. What recommendations would you give him in light of both the career and personal dimensions of his options noted above?

d. What career strategies should today’s workers use in order to avoid Tom’s dilemma? L01