Are contemporary notions of academic career progression ‘fit-for-purpose’? Evidence for a new framing of (academic) careers

Of what value are institutionally rooted terms notions like ‘mid-career’ or ‘early career’ academic? I argue here we need a more expansive perspective on careers than the linear institutional process represented in such terms as they as do not represent the reality of contemporary academia. This argument is rooted in the evidence emerging from our close to 20 years of narrative methodology research which demonstrated that today’s (academic) career progression can better to understood as a rich contextually embedded set of experiences in which individuals self-author and self-define their careers across organisations, time and space. As already noted, terms like ‘mid-career’ draw on a no longer existing career pattern. Second, this traditional framing narrowly focuses on academic work alone, rather than situating work within the influence of individual biography: how work is embedded within life, with work-life decisions intertwined. Third, we need to place individual experience within the broader historical and contemporary socio-economic affordances and constraints that influence careers. Such influences – for instance these days, greater mobility and more accountability – are in constant flux. These results provide an alternate view that offers a firmer and more expansive foundation for today’s Master’s, PhDs and graduates to develop their career literacy.