An Interview with Dr. Johnson about the importance of having “ReCareer Identity”
ReCareer: Dr. Johnson, the first factor in your new book ReCareer: Find Your Authentic Work is “ReCareer Identity”. What is ReCareer Identity?
Dr. Johnson: Mature jobseekers , 50+, express very high needs to align the “who they are” with the “what they do.” Of the 15 most important career competencies for mature jobseekers that we studied, this one, finding personal identity at work, was the second highest. Mature workers want their work to be a personal reflection of their “authentic self.” They increasingly want to satisfy deep personal needs, not only for achievement per se, but even more, they want their workplace to be a forum for expressing their unique self.
ReCareer: Is career identity a new concept for mature workers?
Dr. Johnson: It seems that the notion that each person has a special purpose in life and that this purpose extends to the work arena, now occupies a central belief in the minds of mature jobseekers. Whether Rev. Rick Warren’s best-selling book, A Purpose Driven Life was the cause or the result of such thinking isn’t clear, but what is clear is that finding personal purpose in the workplace is solidly entrenched in the modern-day mindset of mature workers even in today’s difficult labor market. Purpose sells on many levels. Authors Alaina Love and Marc Cugnon have extended the purpose notion to corporations in their book A Purpose-Linked Organization. Finding purpose appears to be a bedrock issue.
ReCareer: Why is ReCareer Identity so important for mature jobseekers?
Dr. Johnson: Many mature workers feel a nagging sense of angst, an empty sense of purposeless at work. In previous generations, such feelings might have gone relatively unnoticed, were minimized, or otherwise pushed aside with thoughts like, “Work is just that … work, you don’t have to feel good about it, you simply have to do it.” Today, the 77 million Boomers who were brought-up on a different mental and emotional diet have other ideas; they see their work as an extension of their authentic self.
Mature workers feel the need for purpose for several reasons: 1) most of them, somewhere along their career paths, have already tasted the bitterness of meaningless employment and don’t want to repeat it, 2) their very maturation process quite naturally and normally invites them to deeper self-examination, and 3) they sense an urgency to find more meaning in their lives as their chronological clock continues ticking, and they look to their work to provide a good portion of it.
ReCareer: So what does a lack of ReCareer Identity mean for an employee?
Dr. Johnson: All this intangible self-analysis adds up to several quite concrete consequences. First, mature workers may pass-up jobs they may have formerly accepted as they scrutinize them for “meaning potential.” Second, mature workers may need special kinds of transition assistance to help them understand their level of need for purpose, and perhaps help them identify the types of positions that would offer them higher levels of meaning. Finally, mature workers may be ripe for entrepreneurial endeavours where they can better shape their own work environment and interaction patterns. The trend is sure to increase as the line between one’s work arena and the other arenas of life blurs further.
Source: ReCareer Inc.