Still Rising: The Career Politician in the British House of Commons, the Cabinet and the Shadow Cabinet

There is a public perception that politicians in the United Kingdom are increasingly detached from the electorate due to the apparent increase in the number of ‘career politicians’ with a professional background in politics. This article examines the occupational backgrounds of successful candidates to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom between the 1997 and 2010 general elections, comparing the parliamentary compositions of the three main political parties (Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats) during this period, and the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet as of 2014. By evaluating original and secondary quantitative data, it is argued that professionalised politicians have increased in the House of Commons relative to other occupational backgrounds, and are even further disproportionately represented in the senior teams of each major party.

Bio-fuelling the Hummer? Transdisciplinary Thoughts on Techno-Optimism and Innovation in the Transition from Unsustainability

An overarching aim of this chapter is to offer an informed and critical analysis of ‘techno-optimism’, informed by an explicitly transdisciplinary approach. A transdisciplinary perspective is one in which knowledge production goes beyond the academy to include end non-academic stakeholders and users. In effect it seeks to ‘upstream’ the involvement of non-academic interests in research design and knowledge production, as opposed to limiting those non-academic interests to the dissemination end point stage of research, which is the dominant research model. Techno-optimism is understood as an exaggerated and unwarranted belief in human technological abilities to solve problems of unsustainability while minimising or denying the need for large-scale social, economic and political transformation. More specifically, techno-optimism is the belief that the negative environmental and social costs of high-consumption, affluent, consumer societies and associated ways of life within capitalist orthodox economic growth orientated socio-economic systems, can be solved or eradicated through technological innovation and breakthroughs. Business as usual can be ‘greened’; a capitalist, growth-based economy can be made more ‘resource efficient’, consumerism less ‘resource intensive’ (and maybe a little bit more ethical). Techno-optimism, to be deliberately provocative for a moment, can therefore be described as a ‘biofuel the hummer’ response to the challenges (and opportunities) of the crisis of unsustainability. What I mean by that analogy is the seductive promise and premise of techno-optimism of not questioning or doubting the status quo (the hummer), hence it’s putative (but entirely false) non-political character. The capitalist, consumerist, growth-based socio-economic system is thus removed from critical analysis (usually on the implicit or explicit assumption of either the normative rightness of this system, or on strategic political grounds that it is naive or utopian to envisage widespread support for a non or post-capitalist consumer system). Techno-optimism simply enables a different means (biofuel) to the same ends.

Integrating a Career Coaching Approach Within a Preparing for Placement Module in Order to Enhance Student Employability

The UFHRD Programme and Qualification Activities Committee awards an annual prize for the best contribution to the UFHRD Teaching & Learning Resource bank. Our teaching and learning resource is an overview of the placement module, including career coaching, that was created to enhance student employability.

Are Career Termination Concerns Only for Athletes? A Case Study of the Career Termination of an Elite Female Coach

This paper presents a case study of an elite female coach and her career termination from a 20+ year career following a critical life incident. A novel autobiographical approach was adopted whereby the participant undertook expressive writing to describe her experiences prior to, during, and following coaching an athlete at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Thematic analysis indicated seven phases related to the participant’s experiences of the critical incident: Build up to the event, the event, the aftermath, recovery and reflection on the event, sampling of new avenues, enlightenment, and career re-birth. The findings reinforce the high demands placed upon elite coaches, the subsequent threats to physical and mental well-being, and the importance of having robust psychological skills and suitable social support to cope with these demands. Implications for preparing and supporting coaches for successful career transition are discussed.

Applying Career Concepts to Strengthen the Work-Attitudes of Service Professionals

Given the nature of employment relationships today, service organizations can strengthen the organization commitment levels and reduce the turnover intentions of its professionals through providing job features important to their careers. These features include opportunities to perform challenging work, experience trusting relationships with customers/clients, and obtain extrinsic rewards. Using a sample of alumni from a hospitality business program, hypotheses that these features impact organizational commitment and turnover intentions, partially through strengthening professionals' career commitment, are developed and tested. Findings suggest that challenging work opportunities impact these attitudes both directly and indirectly. So too trusting relationships with customers and clients indirectly impact organization commitment and intent to turnover (ITO). Results also suggest that, as a whole, satisfaction with extrinsic rewards has no effect. However, an analysis of multigroup mediation results revealed that for professionals working in professional service firms, satisfaction with pay reduces both attitudes. Implications for research in organization commitment and ITO, specifically the role and impact of career-based antecedents, are discussed.

Career guide / University of Iowa Pomerantz Career Center.

A general guide and sourcebook of resources on looking for professional positions, including setting up interviews, polishing interview skills, compiling resumes and other job-search skills.

Are we Doing Enough to Develop Career Competency?

How can you make sure that the graduates you employ are ‘career competent’? Are they prepared for your workplace when they arrive? How can you develop their competency?

Good looks and good practice: the attitudes of career practitioners to attractiveness and appearance

Empirical evidence attests the impact that career image has on objective career success, yet little is known of how career practitioners conceptualise and operationalise this information. This article presents the quantitative findings of an online survey of career practitioners (n=399, 74% female, 89% white, 75% from the UK) exploring their attitudes and practices towards issues of appearance and attractiveness. Career practitioners who participated in this survey acknowledged that beauty, self-presentation and interpersonal skills influence career success, and 96% of them considered conversations about career image as part of their professional remit. The career practitioners felt relatively comfortable and well informed in their discussions in this arena, but would welcome further guidance and training to inform their practice. Ethical and practical implications for the profession are considered.

Promotion and diffusion of tha career Bachelor and Licenciature of Mathematics Teaching in rural areas of Costa Rica project: effects and results

This article describes the purpose and activities of the project Promoting Mathematics Education in Rural Areas of Costa Rica. The activity has focused on two objectives. First, supporting and monitoring students who have expressed interest in studying a mathematics teacher. To achieve this, it has been working with students who have an ideal profile for the career, mainly from rural areas. The second objective is to conduct training workshops for high school in-service teachers, to strengthen and improve their knowledge in the area of mathematics. Among the results of the project, it can be highlighted a significant increase in the enrollment of students in the career of Mathematics Education in 2010 and 2011, and the training processes in the field of Real Functions of Real Variable and Geometry at different regional areas mostly rural as Aguirre, Sarapiquí, Coto, Buenos Aires, Limón, Cañas, Pérez Zeledón, Nicoya, Los Santos, Turrialba, Puriscal, Desamparados, San Carlos, Puntarenas, Limón, Liberia, Santa Cruz y Upala.

The motherhood career slide.

Men constitute 11 per cent of Scotland’s nursing workforce, yet they make up 27.6 per cent of senior management.

Individual human resource management and development: career management

Framed on a wider project on Individual Human Resource Management and Development (HRMD), this project aims to explore Individual Career Management and Development (CMD) as an emergent professional field of HRMD.

Optimism, my key of life /

Previously published under title: My key of life (optimism)

RESULTS OF THE SELF-ASSESSMENT AND DOCUMENTATION LIBRARY CAREER WITH A VIEW TO THE REACREDITATION, 2008

Succinctly defines the terms "accreditation" and "recertification" in order to locate the reader (a) on the theme to develop. Also describes the process of self-assessment of Librarianship and Documentation Race towards the re-accreditation, focusing primarily on results obtained in the development of self-evaluation reports of the various sectors that make up the School. Finally, presents some conclusions both about the overall process of the various reports as described.