The relevancy of MBA programs has drawn widespread attention in the wake of the Great Recession and record levels of unemployment among 18-29 year olds. Who knows the answer to what will keep us economically competitive in the years to come?

With less than two years out of the workplace and Dr. Hewlett found earnings take a 15% hit. Stay out three to four years, get into the swing of volunteering and feeling you are doing good work and expect to see your financial penalties zoom up to as much as 40% of previous earnings. And that’s not counting opportunity costs of missed promotions or what Dr. Hewlett calls stretch assignments.

If you’re female and think this can’t happen to you, think again. Her data shows that fully two-thirds of women have non-linear career paths. Many of the paths were designed by the women themselves because until recently, corporations were letting women quit rather than making accommodations to a career that doesn’t go in a lock step.

Now that’s changing. Dr. Hewlett reeled off several initiatives from Cisco, Ernest and Young and others that pay more than lip service to modified work arrangements. Still, in many other companies the going is uphill.

There is good news when corporations are left out of the picture and employees rely on their own initiative. According to Dr. Hewlett when Lehman Brothers collapsed the women themselves came together, some 600, to network with one another and provide support, encouragement and job leads. That’s an upside to the financial meltdown. “Ten years ago you wouldn’t have seen that cooperation at that level,” she said.

Women who make it back into the workplace after children, face prospects of facing a second off ramp if elder care responsibilities fall to them.

It’s probably not a coincidence that there is still a high rate of childlessness among female executives. Turns out you can have it all if you are willing to see your earnings tank, or rely for a time on a spouse, which may turn out to be a bad bet in this uncertain economy.

It casts a light on what Mr. Colvin calls world class performers, but others would label achievement through opportunity, persistence and enthusiasm for a task.

The book works on several different levels with insights useful to corporate managers, job seekers and recent graduates.

Even with a fiscal crisis Mr. Colvin still makes the case that financial capital is abundant, but the scare resource is human ability. (If only those who have lost their jobs agreed with him.) The illustrations Mr. Colvin uses to support his thesis, Exxon, Microsoft, and Apple are large corporations that hire for specific areas of responsiblity. “Microsoft hires incredibly smart people,” he said. 

Mr. Colvin is also  keen on an individual’s cognitive abilities, what some might call brainpower, but he says companies don’t necessarily emphasize them.  Perhaps, that’s why he sees opportunities for the resurgence of the corporate manager.  “There is going to be a shift to managerial responsibility,” he said.  Technology superiority as the basis for economic superiority is about to change.

Where those managers may come from is still open to debate. A recent issue of  The Economist (May 8-May 14, 2010) called into question the convention of hiring MBA’s since it said banks and consulting firms are increasingly recruiting people without the degree, particularly mathematicians and computer scientists. And it appears more companies are developing home grown talent.

 Since the emphasis in Mr. Colvin’s book is on world- class performance, it would appear the sooner you start, the higher you can soar. If you are considering a so called “encore career” , Mr. Colvin predicts that the more your skills transfer, the more effective you will be.

By far, the best piece of advice applies to companies and new graduates. Think deeply about your core and what you won’t cut. “Focus on that,” he said. Customers will have new problems and will have to come up with new solutions. Don’t just cut price.” 

After a five week trial  a jury found a pattern of discrimination against women employees over pay, promotion and pregnancy from 2002-2007 .

Working Mother Magazine has considered Novartis one of the 100 Best Companies for Women during the last ten years. The New York Times reported Carol Evans, president of Working Mother Media, released a statement that expressed disappointment in the company’s discriminatory practices.

Novartis is the maker of Theraflu and Triaminic. For women going through perimenopause they offer the Vivelledot. And for women who have osteoporosis they manufacture Miacalcin and Reclast.

Why did a company that purports to make drugs to improve the quality of women’s and children’s lives discriminate against women in its workplace?

Novartis said it would appeal the verdict.

Coming next week on www.amyzipkin.com our Conversation with Geoff Colvin the author of Talent is Overrated, which will soon be out in paperback.

Those still on the sidelines, may want to consider the findings of Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor David Autor. With his colleague, Susan N. Houseman of the Upjohn Institute, he’s found that temporary help job placements do not improve subsequent earnings and employment outcomes.  His study covered low skilled workers. And he says the temp work takes away from the hard work of job hunting.

What hard work? He directed me to the troubling statistic uncovered by his colleague Dr. Alan Krueger of Princeton University who with Andreas Muller who published a paper in May 2008 entitled The Lot of the Unemployed: A Time Use Perspective.

It seems before the financial meltdown unemployed Americans spent a mere 40 minutes a day on their job search, while their gainfully employed colleagues spent a full 408 minutes on the job. What did the unemployed do with the rest of their day?

For openers they spent nearly double the amount on the care of others, 112 minutes for the employed vs. 226 minutes for the unemployed. What did they do with the rest of their time? The unemployed spent more time on education a day, 25 minutes, vs. 11 minutes for the employed. And they spent a disproportionate share of their leisure time watching television, 201 minutes for the unemployed vs. 109 minutes for those who were employed.

Dr. Krueger is on leave at the Treasury Department and unavailable for comment. And, yes, in May 2008, the recession was just beginning. It’s become a truism that jobs are hard to come by and it’s an employers’ market. Still some job seekers might get better results if they redoubled their efforts.

Since the recession started, there has been increasing attention being paid to working longer and there are several bright spots. Last month, I profiled Dianne Fuller Doherty who is still going strong in a full time career past the age of 70. Afterwards we talked with Marc Freedman  of Civic Ventures, whose passion for second careers  has been widely covered.

Recently the Towers Watson 2010 Retirement Confidence Survey  found that although th age at which workers say they expect to retire changed little from a year ago, the percentage of workers who expect to retire after age 65 increased from 11% in 1991 to 33% in 2010. It’s up nearly 10% in the last five years.

We recently asked Tamara Erickson, who wrote Retire Retirement, (Harvard Business School Press 2008) about this trend. She has an optimistic outlook, but recognizes there may be challenges ahead if baby boomers chose to work longer.

AZ. When you wrote Retire Retirement, Career Strategies for the Boomer Generation, it was ahead of the fiscal meltdown, and 10% unemployment. What has been the biggest misperception you’ve faced about the book since the recession began?

TE. I didn’t foresee the speed with which the nature of work available in the US economy would change.  The recession accelerated the shift away from the manufacturing base toward knowledge-intensive work, to an extent that I didn’t fully anticipate.  The US lost millions of manufacturing jobs very abruptly over the past 18 months.  As a result, we have the paradox today of high unemployment and growing skill shortages in a number of knowledge-intense sectors of the economy.  The prediction that there will be work available for Boomers who want to continue working post-traditional retirement ages is now true only for those with specialized skills or knowledge.

AZ. How do you think the significant erosion of wealth caused by the downturn, not to mention, the fall-off in home prices, even among those homes not in foreclosure, has impacted the baby boomers ability to remake themselves? What suggestions do you have for taking a longer view? 

TE. It has clearly shifted the mix of the portfolio lives that Boomers will need to create – toward having a higher percentage of time devoted to income-producing activities.  However, I don’t think there’s a major philosophical impact – certainly not to the extent portrayed in some media reports.  Boomers have always intended to remain active – to remain involved in constructive, contributing activities.  They were never planning to spend their entire post-retirement years in leisure. They may need to spend a little less time doing strictly volunteer activities and instead do things that earn some income, but that’s a shift in the type of activity, not from leisure to activity.

AZ. When you talk about Career Curve archetypes, types of work available, the patterns for each seem very different. Are baby boomers destined to continue in the same archetype they had during their working lives? Or is it possible to transition from one archetype to another and if so how? 

TE. They’re not destined to continue in the same archetype – and one of my major hopes is that people will use the book to think carefully about their archetype and therefore the types of activities they would enjoy and find most meaningful.  Today only about 25% of the workforce overall is engaged in their work; a significant proportion of the remaining 75% are probably doing work that does not fit their archetype.  I hope people who fall in the 75% will use the “retirement” break as an opportunity to re-think and change directions.  A number of the tips in the book are aimed at ways to do that – the basic advice is to experiment in low risk/ low commitment ways until you find something that you feel very excited about.

AZ. Do we still have a “Workforce Crisis” of jobs needing to be filled, or did the Great Recession put that on hiatus especially in the financial, automotive and publishing industries? The country’s unemployment numbers don’t appear to be budging, and older workers, in particular, are taking longer to return to work than other age groups. 

TE. We have a paradox:  persistent high unemployment (that will probably remain for at least another 5 years) AND growing shortages in key skill sets.  One problem with knowledge-based jobs is that they tend to be less fungible.  In other words, if someone is laid off from a manufacturing job in one industry, there is a reasonable probability that they are qualified to perform a manufacturing job in a different industry.  However, knowledge jobs do not tend to span industries (or do so to a much lesser extent).  So, an accountant cannot immediately work as a nurse, for example.  As our economy is comprised of a higher and higher percentage of knowledge work, the likelihood of high unemployment in some sectors and talent shortages in others will grow.

AZ. Why do you think the preference for cyclic work, taking time off between assignments, has not had as enthusiastic reception in the United States as it has in say France or Brazil? What do you think needs to be changed to increase its popularity here?  

TE. I suspect that the Boomers’ firm grip on corporate leadership in the US – and the size of this generation relative to the Xers who follow – has strongly influenced our work patterns.  Boomers have been conditioned to go “all out” – as hard and as intensively as possible.  Cyclic work, at least during their career shaping years, has not had great appeal for US Boomers.  And, because they are generally “the boss,” others have not felt comfortable taking advantage of cyclic work policies even when they exist.  As Gen Xers move into leadership roles, I expect to see a much greater acceptance of cyclic work in the U.S. 

I’m not sure why France and Brazil have managed to break through earlier.  Certainly attitudes toward work are different in these countries from the US Boomer approach.  France, in particular, has tended to have more of a “work to live” approach for many decades, which I suspect makes the country, as a whole, more open to various cyclic arrangements.

AZ. In what ways do you anticipate the baby boomers will be able to diffuse long standing attitudes about age discrimination? Can you provide several current examples of how these attitudes are being diffused?

TE. Oh, yes.  I think Boomers have always believed that every stage at life THEY reach is a wonderful stage – I have no doubt that they will make being 60 and 70 and even 80 very “cool,” too.  As an example, look at the number of Boomers who are posing in swim suits on the covers of magazines or otherwise doing things that formerly would have been the province of the young.

But, if Fess Parker had designs on being something other than a stalwart player at the Disney studios, he was destined to be disappointed. As Richard Severo pointed out in Mr. Parker’s obituary in The New York Times, “He began to chafe at the roles the Disney organization was offering him, and when he refused to appear in “Tonka,” the studio suspended him. He was unhappy, too, that Walt Disney had discouraged his being cast in “The Searchers,” the John Ford classic starring John Wayne, and “Bus Stop,” with Marilyn Monroe.”

Of course, no one will know what Mr. Parker’s acting future might have held, if he had appeared in those films. After he hung up his buckskin, he went on to a business career, including that of vintner. Was he typecast by Disney? Or were they just unwilling to tinker with success?

As Towers Watson reported last week, in the aftermath of the great recession, employees are seeking security.  To what extent is it okay to give up some of your dreams for security?

Are we on track for The Organization Man, “The Sequel?” In their Global Workforce Study released today Towers Watson, a human capital firm, showed a workforce weary of the fallout from the recession. And, perhaps not surprisingly, there is a renewed interest in job security. When respondents were asked about the factors most important in a preferred work situation, 86% chose a secure and stable position. Fewer, 74%, chose substantially higher levels of compensation.

Has the pendulum swung away from the idea Daniel H. Pink, author of the recently released Drive,  first popularized in Free Agent Nation? Said Laura Sejen, a leader of the company’s Talent and Rewards business, “Where once employers fretted over a ‘war for talent,’ now they must plan for a workforce that appears ready to settle in for years—perhaps even decades.”,

What will this mean for those joining the workforce in coming years, and folks who are delaying retirement? Share your thoughts!

If anything, Ms. Jansen’s book is more relevant now than when it was first published. Make no mistake, reading the book will take dedication, the reader might even find it useful to have a highlighter or post it notes at hand.  Ms. Jansen insists when it comes to careers, one size doesn’t fit all. 

How do you recommend a job changer read this book? Are there some parts that are essential and others that can be skimmed?

The book was written so that the reader does not have to read it in its entirety. I doubt that I have ever read a self-help book cover to cover. The Introduction and Chapter One set the book up and are interesting but not necessary to read. Chapters Two, Three and Four are a must in my opinion because this is where the reader takes assessments to help him to understand his own situation, a crucial first step to changing work. Finally, the reader only needs to move to one of the six chapters that best describes his specific situation whether it be Bruised and Gun-shy or Yearning to Be on Your Own. Most people do tend to fall into more then one of the six work situations however there is usually one that is dominant.

Why is it so important for a job seeker to be clear on attitudes, values and personality preferences before beginning a job hunt?

There are so many reasons to know and internalize this information about oneself.

1. If you don’t know who you are and what is important to you, you won’t be successful at making a good match for you work-wise. This is analogous to dating.

2. Being clear about your values, personality preferences and attitudes will enable you to articulate this to a potential employer so that they understand who you are.

3. Articulating who you are will also make it easier for you to sell yourself and the value that you can bring.

4. People who are more self-aware are happier and healthier! 

You have a lot of categories, indeed some of them may be overlapping. Is it possible a mid life career changer might be Bruised and Gun Shy at the same he or she is Bored and Plateaued? How do you suggest the reader prioritize which sections most apply to them?

Yes, absolutely! When I speak to audiences and ask them which of the six categories they fall into, the majority will tell me that they fit into at least three situations, if not more. If someone is Bored and Plateaued and Bruised and Gun-shy, they probably will need to work on improving their self-confidence and self-esteem first before changing work to move out of the Bored and Plateaued phase. Usually there is something the reader needs to do to handle in each of the specific situations they fall within.

In this economy, it’s inevitable that job seekers have gaps in their resumes. What’s the best way to handle that?

The good news about this is that because approximately 20% of the American population is unemployed, employers and recruiters are now accustomed to seeing gaps. It is still just as important for someone to be able to clearly describe their work history, including gaps of time. At the same time, avoid dwelling on them and prepare a succinct sentence if the question comes up. 

If a job seeker has changed companies frequently, will that be a red flag for employment? How would a job seeker diffuse the idea they might be flighty or worse irresponsible?

This really depends on the pattern of changes. If the person has worked in the same industry but for many companies in a shorter period of time, this is a red flag. If the person has moved quickly from industry to industry, this may not present as much of a red flag unless the jobs are lower level/easy entry jobs. My experience as a career coach is that usually when people hop too much, there is an interpersonal or performance issue so the potential employer needs to be skilled in learning why the person keeps moving around.

What suggestions do you have for people who love being specialists, and may have had the same job title or similar responsibilities and job title, albeit in different companies for years.

I don’t see this as an issue unless it’s a case of the specific type of work becoming moribund or going away. A good example is computer programming. This job all but disappeared when companies started outsourcing this work overseas, in particular to India. Then it is time for reinvention for the specialist worker. Also, I think specialists are hired and then expected to become a generalist once they are in the job.