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Although the literature on the careers of skilled migrants is growing, relatively little is known about their experiences inside host country organizations. This article is a replication and an extension of a study by Zikic et al. (2010) on career challenges and coping strategies of skilled migrants. In contrast to the replicated study, where the focus was on the unemployed pool of talented migrants, in this study, the authors look at the career experiences of those who are already employed. Similar to the study of Zikic et al. (2010), the authors seek to explore how migrants understand their careers and what approaches they use to enact career opportunities from the perspective of “insiders” in local organizations.

The authors used a qualitative explorative approach. Based on 24 in-depth interviews with highly qualified specialists, who were hired for positions in Luxembourg corresponding to their professional profiles, the authors explore what challenges they face at the workplace and how they tackle them.

This research not only replicates the study of Zikic et al. (2010) but also extends the authors’ knowledge of the careers of skilled migrants in the context of local organizations. By focusing on employed skilled migrants, the authors open a “black box” of their career challenges and strategies and extend an earlier career typology (Zikic et al., 2010) into what happens within local organizations. In particular, this study identifies two major challenges that skilled migrants experience, namely, “trying to fit in” and “managing career mismatch”. Then, it shows three unique strategies that skilled migrants use to manage their careers. This allows us to cluster skilled migrants into three categories that the authors conceptualized, namely “workhorses”, “career rebels” and “career conformists”.

This study contributes to the literature on the careers of skilled migrants by theorizing the experiences of migrant careers after organizational entry. It also contributes to the talent management literature by providing nuanced insights into the challenges, strategies and profiles that this global talent has.

This case study, within the context of boundaryless and protean career development frameworks, investigates linguistic profiling and how code-switching is used to mitigate its impact on Black leaders during their careers. The experiences of Black women coaches and the coaching support they offered Black women clients in code-switching, leadership and career advancement are described. The value of leadership coaching when used to navigate these career progression challenges is emphasized.

The study employed a multiple-case study approach of two Black women leadership coaches.

The findings of this study illustrate the understanding of code-switching and the coaching techniques employed by two Black women leadership coaches. Sage focused on educational strategies, offering historical contexts and resources, while Khadijah leaned on empathy-driven methods, using storytelling to evoke reflection. Both coaches emphasized creating safe spaces for open dialog, encouraged clients to reconsider their actions and values regarding code-switching challenges and sought to prompt clients towards authenticity while navigating career spaces effectively.

Additional strategies for coach practitioners include cultivating trust and a safe environment; active listening; challenging biases and assumptions; contextual understanding; empowering authentic self-expression; fostering skill development; challenging stereotypes; promoting autonomy and flexibility and adopting cross-cultural sensitivity, humility and competence. These practical coaching strategies bridge the gap in career development research by demonstrating how race-conscious strategies can promote workplace inclusivity and promulgate career development.

The study underscores the problem of linguistic profiling, the complexity of code-switching and implications for Black women navigating their career journey within professional spaces. It highlights the significance and value of tailored leadership coaching strategies to promote career advancement. This study addresses the gap in career development research related to linguistic profiling avoidance strategies for workplace inclusivity.

The purpose of this research was to empirically examine the career transitions of mid-career African American women leaving traditional careers for entrepreneurship. The authors illustrate how transition theory and effectuation principles ameliorate an African American woman's transition to entrepreneurship.

The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with nine African American woman entrepreneurs. The data collected were evaluated through the lens of transition theory and effectuation theory.

The study results show that despite being the chief officer, many African American women still face inequalities when negotiating business deals, interacting with partners and when seeking capital for their business. Effectuation theory partially supports an African American woman's career transition to entrepreneurship, but the theory does not fully address the unique experiences of this demographic.

The results of this study reveal that effectuation principles do not fully explain the entrepreneurial career transition experiences of African American women. Theory development and extensions of existing theories should consider the potential discriminatory practices that limit financial resources and strategic partnerships for African American women entrepreneurs. The authors also advocate for consideration of identities, particularly related to gender and race, as factors that contribute to entrepreneurial experiences.

The study findings support the notion that each woman's situation will be different and unique, requiring aspiring African American woman entrepreneurs to assess their individual situation. Consistent access to minority-specific programs can help aspiring African American women entrepreneurs visualize her new identity and provide the support needed to enhance her career transition. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, so each woman will need to craft her own individualized plan.

Findings from this study solidify the role of African American women entrepreneurs as business leaders with influence and direct impact on the US economy. Their success enables African American women to contribute to more inclusive societies through their service to diverse members of society. In addition, their attainment of success serves as a testimony to aspiring African American women that entrepreneurial success is achievable, encouraging more diversity in entrepreneurship.

Few entrepreneurial studies exist on both women and racial minorities, resulting in a paucity of strategies to support African American women throughout their entrepreneurial journey. The results of this study revealed barriers which require specific strategies to address discriminatory lending practices and acceptance when forging new business relationships.

Our study examines the impact of career enhancing strategies (CES), supportive work relationships and family–work conflict (FWC) on subjective career success.

The data were sourced from 107 professionals, who were the members of an alumni LinkedIn group of the Masters Human Resource degree program from a university in the Midwestern United States. Multiple regression analysis was employed to test the study hypotheses.

Results indicate that both forms of CES – networking and mentoring – were positively associated with subjective career success, and there exists a positive association between perceived organizational support and subjective career success. Further, FWC moderates the relationship between subjective career success and mentoring and also moderates the relationship between subjective career success and perceived supervisor support.

Organizations should provide opportunities to employees for networking and institute formal mentoring programs to enhance employees' perceptions of subjective career success. It is also crucial for organizations to promote work–life balance initiatives that can help reduce the levels of FWC experienced by employees.

Our study makes important contributions to the extant literature by highlighting the importance of CES and supportive work relationships in ensuring subjective career success. It also identifies an important moderator, FWC, which can significantly impact subjective career success.

Externalities influence the career trajectories of self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) and their respective career crafting. This study aims to explore the international career crafting of SIEs (encompassing their proactive career reflection and construction), taking the combined external influences of complexity, chance and change into consideration.

The authors employ a qualitative (interpretative) approach, combining career crafting and the chaos theory of careers (CTC) to further understand, from an individual standpoint, the impact of externalities on the career crafting strategies of 24 SIEs who have relocated within the European Union.

The authors show that SIEs' proactively craft their careers to varying degrees and with varying frequency. The CTC – incorporating complexity, chance and change – allows for a more nuanced understanding of SIEs' career crafting.

This paper applies the concept of career crafting to an international context, exploring the impact of externalities on SIEs' careers. In this way, the authors combine two previously separate theories, extend the application of career crafting to an international career context and emphasise the role of temporality and the whole-life view of career in SIEs’ career crafting approach.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the relationships between person–job fit and job satisfaction, the mediating role of career self-management and the moderating role of job demands.

In this paper, 947 employees were surveyed using questionnaires, and hypothesis testing was conducted using structural equation modeling in Mplus.

Person–job fit was found to be positively related to career self-management, and career self-management plays a mediating role in the positive relationship between person–job fit and job satisfaction. Statistical analysis also confirmed that job demands moderate both the relationship between person–job fit and career self-management, as well as the relationship between person–job fit and job satisfaction via career self-management.

The results of a single study offer limited generalizability and should thus be applied with caution. More cross-industry and cross-company studies should be conducted to verify the applicability of the findings to other industries, cultures and geographical contexts.

Managers should try to enhance employees' person–job fit and help or encourage them to engage in career self-management to increase job satisfaction. Additionally, managers should be aware of the negative influence of job demands and try to keep them at low levels.

This study extends and enriches the understanding of the positive influence of person–job fit on work outcomes, explores the mechanism of person–job fit on job satisfaction from a new perspective, namely career self-management, and explores the boundary condition (i.e. job demands) of the relationship between person–job fit and career self-management in the Chinese context.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between career adaptability and career resilience. Alongside, the mediating role of career-management fit was also tested on the relationship between career adaptability and career resilience.

Cross-sectional data were collected from the employees of higher-education institutes via an online survey questionnaire. The partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique using the SmartPLS application was employed for the data analyses.

Results showed that career-management fit positively mediates the relationship between career adaptability and career resilience. Further, a direct positive relationship between career adaptability and career resilience was also substantiated.

Theoretical implications, managerial implications, study limitations and future research directions are also discussed.

The authors put forward the field by probing the developmental strategy for career resilience. This is because, in academics, career-resilient individuals can better contribute towards academic growth and can also maintain a good life balance (Mishra and McDonald, 2017). Hence, this study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the first to investigate the career-management fit as a pathway bridging career adaptability and career resilience.

This paper aims to explore the Spanish Self-Initiated Expats’ (SIEs) motivations and factors involved in the choice of the host destination.

Through an exploratory and qualitative study, drawing upon SIE literature on motivations and careers, 22 Spanish SIEs were interviewed in a semi-structured way.

Most SIEs clearly detailed the line of reasoning behind the host destination choice (specific destination); a second group considered a limited number of potential countries to relocate to (alternative destinations), and the smallest one did not choose a specific location. Career motivations were the most mentioned ones and different degrees of career planning were found: those with a very defined career planning process relied upon one potential destination, while those with a less defined one considered several alternative host destinations. The European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students experience was one of the most mentioned factors influencing the choice of the host destination, which may be common to other European Union (EU) nationals. As to the limiting ones, the visa requirements outside the EU were identified. Other factors were particular to Spain, such as the perceived need for English proficiency for a successful global career and the degrees of career planning.

These findings may assist Talent Management Managers to align organizational strategies with SIEs motivations. They may also help future Spanish and European SIEs in their individual career management process.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the expatriation motivations and factors influencing the destination location of Spanish SIEs, adding to the SIE and global career literature.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neuro-developmental condition that has frequently been pathologised in career research and broader society to date. The study seeks to reframe such assumptions through a qualitative positive-focused exploration of career stories of ADHD adults, elicited through a strength-focused technique with wide applicability for coaching and other career-based development activities.

Situated in a strength-focused coaching psychology paradigm, the authors undertook semi-structured interviews with 17 participants, using an adapted feedforward interview technique (FFI) rooted in positive psychology (PP), to investigate individuals' strengths and successful career experiences.

Narrative thematic analysis of the transcripts identified two core themes: “the paradoxical nature of strengths” and “career success as an evolving narrative”. The participants described how they have achieved career success both “in spite of” and “because of” ADHD. The use of the FFI demonstrated a helpful and easily taught method for eliciting personal narratives of success and strengths, an essential foundation to any coaching process.

This research provides a nuanced overview, and an associated conceptual model, of how adults with ADHD perceive their career-based strengths and experiences of success. Further, the research shows the value of using a positive psychological coaching approach when working with neurominority individuals, using a successful adaptation of the FFI. The authors hope that the documentation of this technique and the resulting insights will offer important guidance for managers as coaches and internal and external career coaches, as well as providing positive and relatable narrative resources for ADHD adults.

This study aims to explore the relationships between career competencies and job search self-efficacy via the serial multiple mediation effect of career adaptability and self-perceived employability within multiple theoretical frameworks.

This study adopts a cross-sectional design to collect data at a specific point in time and employs self-report questionnaires to collect data from participants. In total, 302 students from the “management and organization department” in a vocational school of a public university completed the survey forms. To test the hypothesized model, a serial multiple mediation analysis was performed using structural equation modeling (SEM) via SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structures).

The results indicated that career competencies, career adaptability, job search self-efficacy and self-perceived employability all had significant and positive relationships. Additionally, the relationship between career competencies and job search self-efficacy was serially mediated by career adaptability and self-perceived employability as anticipated.

Considering the growing importance of the subject of how universities might better prepare their graduates for the job market, the study's findings have important policy implications. University students should also be provided with career management resources, specifically adaptation resources, to help them navigate their individual characteristics and transfer more successfully into the existing job market. This is the cause of the need for constant planning, adaptation, assessment and evaluation of career competencies in current labor markets.

The study contributes to international career development and vocational education research by filling a gap in the literature by demonstrating that job search self-efficacy, which is a predictor of job search behavior, can be promoted by career competencies, career adaptability and self-perceived employability. These findings are particularly significant because they highlight the importance of career-related knowledge, skills and abilities in engaging university students seeking employment in a developing country with a highly competitive labor market.