BREAKPOINTS: Making Career Stages Work for You

One more hand-holder for those climbing the corporate ladder, this time focusing on so-called ""breakpoints""--danger zones between career stages which necessitate a transition of sorts. The guide's goal is to assist would-be champions in the recognition and appropriate handling of these key career periods. Among them: a chance to move; a command change; your visibility quotient changes; you reach a pay-scale peak or become most senior, and half a dozen others. The author, a corporate consultant, identifies three unique career paths (fast track, steady path and entrepreneur), each of which embodies distinct breakpoints. Fame and fortune could conceivably accrue to a follower of any one of the three paths, although one is led to believe that only fast trackers and a very few entrepreneurs ever truly succeed to wield ""advisory power"" (the corporate equivalent of nirvana, apparently). Through a series of hypothetical situations, career stages are reduced to their significant breakpoints with definitive responses to each proposed situation included in the text. Like so many others of similar ilk, Breakpoints contains self-tests which should assist aspirants in evaluating goals and selecting or redefining career paths. The prÉcis, that breakpoints exist and are, or can be, definitive reference or transitional points, is valid. However, beware of authoritative advisories which provide ""hard and fast"" guidelines on capitalizing in a complex corporate environment. Of interest primarily to experienced corporate-types who would better appreciate the concept and its various implications.