Deck 9: Talent, Careers, and Development

Question 1

Margaret is a 54-year-old manager in the client support services department of a heavy equipment manufacturer. She has been with the company throughout her career and has had a steady rise in the hierarchy through promotions. She has performed well in numerous training and development programs. Margaret currently meets performance expectations. In the judgment of Margaret's superiors, she has "topped out" and will not be qualified for further advancement. Which of the following statements is most appropriate for Margaret's situation?

A) In the future, Margaret should be considered for lateral moves.
B) Margaret should receive stretch assignments to bring out her latent potential.
C) Since Margaret has no potential to advance, she should be encouraged to take phased retirement.
D) Margaret should receive coaching and perhaps be moved to another organization.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Carla is 52 years of age. She has been laid off twice in her life, once when her employer downsized and once when her organization was acquired by a rival company. She has now hit a career plateau after five years with her current employer. Carla is rather frustrated; each time she has changed employers, she has adapted and acquired more skills and expanded her knowledge base. Which of the following patterns best describes Carla's career progression?

A) A linear progression interrupted by transitions
B) A cycle of stability and instability
C) A series of successive plateaus
D) Typical stagnation of the late career stage

Answer 2

B

Question 3

A(n) _____ is a sequence of work-related positions a person occupies throughout life.

A) career
B) job ladder
C) profession
D) occupation

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Individual-centered career planning primarily focuses on:

A) the logical progression of people through jobs in an organization.
B) an organization's long-term staffing needs.
C) succession planning for key positions.
D) an employee's personal characteristics and his/her life and work goals.

Question 5

If talent management is effective in a firm, it is most likely that:

A) the voluntary turnover among the high potential employees will be essentially zero.
B) the organization will not have to use the external labor market except in emergencies.
C) the cost of labor in the firm will be lower than its direct competitors.
D) the firm has a succession plan in place for all holders of critical jobs.

Question 6

Which of the following is a common mistake made by organizations during succession planning?

A) Including the boards of directors, along with the HR in the process of CEO succession
B) Focussing on the other employees apart from the top management
C) Allowing the CEO to direct the planning process
D) Looking externally as well as internally for succession candidates

Question 7

When is a career plateau most likely to occur?

A) When an employee starts gaining new skills
B) When an employee employs the strategy of job sequencing
C) When an employee becomes unmotivated and quits
D) When an employee cannot advance upward within an organization

Question 8

The HR department at Total Utilities is planning an internal career day which will feature workshops on various careers at Total Utilities, opportunities for work in the overseas locations of Total Utilities, and presentations by HR staff on training and development opportunities available at Total Utilities. This is an example of:

A) individual-based career development.
B) organization-centered career planning.
C) career mapping.
D) training and development outsourcing.

Question 9

Web sites that list careers in an organization:

A) are most appropriate for recruiting internal applicants.
B) encourage unqualified internal applicants to apply for jobs.
C) should tap both the internal and external labor pool.
D) limit the quality of applicants because a large numbers of job seekers do not have access to computers.

Question 10

Which of the following is true of career plateaus?

A) Plateaued employees are poor candidates for training and development because they have reached the highest level for which they are suitable in their organizations.
B) Career plateaus are a sign that valuable resources are not being used appropriately.
C) Career plateaus are more likely to occur in a person's early career rather than in one's later career.
D) An employee who defines career success in terms of upward mobility would view a career plateau as a sign of failure.

Question 11

Carmelo, the editor of a business department of a national news magazine, went through a sequence of jobs in the company before he achieved this position. He joined as a staff reporter, then got promoted to technology reporter, then to editor of the business department, and then to deputy managing editor before achieving his current position. This is:

A) an example of a non-traditional career path.
B) the result of organization-centered career planning.
C) a demonstration of the cyclical nature of careers.
D) a series of career transitions.

Question 12

Gerald is confused as to why his 28-year-old daughter is changing jobs for the third time since she graduated from college. His daughter tells him that she has learned everything she could from her current job and that it is time to move on. Gerald's daughter is in the stage of her career where most people's needs and concerns are:

A) to identify interests and acquire capabilities.
B) to focus on making as high a salary as possible because this affects their earning potential for the rest of their lives.
C) to achieve personal integrity and incorporate their values into their work life.
D) to establish their political power base within their organization.

Question 13

As a development technique, the best lateral transfers:

A) facilitate upward career progress in the organization.
B) encourage employees to learn new skills that increase their marketability.
C) encourage the redundant employee to leave the company voluntarily without being terminated.
D) provide a monetary incentive for taking on new work.

Question 14

When an organization ties formal succession plans to career paths for employees, it:

A) discourages the practice of making status-blind employment decisions.
B) runs the risk that the chosen successors will feel they have a legal or moral right to the job when it becomes available.
C) discourages employees who have not been selected to succeed key managers which reduces overall morale.
D) improves employee retention and performance motivation.

Question 15

Which of the following statements is true about career planning?

A) Modern careers are cyclical in that individuals will have periods of stability interrupted by periods of transition.
B) A person's early career is marked by stability as he/she learns new skills, but a person's later career tends to be turbulent as he/she moves from organization to organization.
C) The democratic traditions of the U.S. result in the fact that the socioeconomic status of one's family has no impact on one's career choices.
D) Interest inventories are important because interests are stable over a person's lifetime.

Question 16

The _____ provisions have added more demands that boards do CEO succession planning.

A) Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
B) Sarbanes-Oxley Act
C) Employee Retirement Income Security Act
D) Congressional Accountability Act

Question 17

Ambrose is discussing his college major with his best friend. Ambrose says that his parents want him to be a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) just like them when he graduates. However, Ambrose says, "I just don't see myself as an accountant!" Which of the following can be concluded from the information given in this scenario?

A) Ambrose's self-image is not congruent with his parent's image of him.
B) Ambrose belongs to a personality type that is not likely to go for a practical job.
C) Ambrose's choice is conflicting with that of his peers.
D) Ambrose's interest is clashing with his self-image.

Question 18

The first step in the succession planning process is to:

A) decide whether to "make" or to "buy" talent.
B) identify key employees and their anticipated retirement dates.
C) define the positions that are critical to the organization's strategy.
D) assess the capabilities of current employees.

Question 19

Long-term succession planning in an organization should go beyond just high-level executives and:

A) focus on high-turnover jobs in the organization.
B) include mid-level and lower-level managers and key nonmanagement employees.
C) involve every job in the organization's core functions.
D) target jobs for which it is most difficult to find qualified external candidates.

Question 20

_____ are tools to help people identify their interests, what they do well, what they like, and their strengths and weaknesses.

A) SWOT analyses
B) Neuropsychological tests
C) Career goal settings
D) Self-assessment tests

Question 21

Plateaued employees may be a problem for an organization because:

A) plateaued employees are typically poor performers who did not get promoted.
B) their presence discourages younger, ambitious employees.
C) they tend to have higher compensation than is justified by their contribution to the organization.
D) they affect morale if they become negative.

Question 22

Which of the following is true of lecture-style classroom instruction?

A) The technique is generally ineffective regardless of the instructor's capabilities.
B) Employees typically resist classroom instruction.
C) Employees have fewer opportunities to participate than in other types of instruction.
D) Its effectiveness is independent of the size of the group.

Question 23

When opportunities for promotion are scarce, a good way to keep employees motivated and develop their talents within the organization is:

A) to send them to a corporate university.
B) to encourage practices of glass ceiling.
C) to give them a sabbatical or leave of absence.
D) to rotate them through lateral transfers.

Question 24

Which of the following statements is true of job sequencing?

A) It is the primary cause of career plateaus.
B) It is the pattern where an individual steps off the career track or plateaus to accommodate the demands of raising children.
C) It allows engineering and technical professionals a chance to advance without moving into management.
D) It is a form of job rotation where employees move from one major organizational function to another.

Question 25

Josh is 32 years old. He worked for a financial organization for seven years after graduating with a bachelor's degree. He received three promotions during that period. Recently, he was fired by his employers and is now working part-time as a bartender while training as an X-ray technician. Josh is experiencing:

A) a career plateau.
B) a Protean career.
C) career sequencing.
D) a career transition.

Question 26

In order to reward talented technical people who do not want to move into management, many companies have established:

A) corporate universities for technical development.
B) portable career paths.
C) dual career ladders.
D) job rotation programs.

Question 27

The high rate of turnover of nursing staff is a major concern at Briar Mountain Regional Medical Center. Many experienced nurses resist moving into management, but exit interviews indicate that many of the best nurses leave Briar Mountain because they feel they cannot advance in the organization. Which of the following steps would be most efficient in reducing the turnover of nursing staff?

A) Hiring nurses who are later in their careers, where advancement is less of a concern to them
B) Offering to pay tuition for nurses who wish to enroll in MBA programs so they are more qualified to take managerial positions
C) Implementing a dual-career ladder for nurses
D) Providing retention bonuses and significant pay raises tied to seniority

Question 28

Paul has completed two months at his first job. He is dissatisfied with his unsupportive supervisor, the lack of specific feedback, and the logistical aspects of solving problems. This best exemplifies a(n) _____.

A) entry shock
B) feedback on reality
C) cyclical career
D) premature career plateau

Question 29

Which of the following statements is true about glass ceiling?

A) It was pronounced among the Baby Boom generation, but is no longer a major factor in women's careers.
B) It allows women to strike a balance between their personal lives and their careers.
C) It is not an issue that can be addressed by HR policy because it results from the reality of women's family responsibilities early in their careers.
D) It has resulted in very few corporate office positions being held by women as compared to men.

Question 30

Assistant positions are useful as a management tool mostly because:

A) they allow employees to understand the political processes and personalities in an organization.
B) they allow employees to work with outstanding managers.
C) they eliminates instances of glass ceiling.
D) they reduce the entry shock of newly-hired college graduates.

Question 31

Nelson, the HR Director of a large organization, is concerned about the lack of a deep internal pool of talent for middle and upper management jobs. He feels there may be employees with high management potential in lower level jobs who have not been identified and selected for development. Which of the following steps should Nelson take in order to most accurately identify the employees with high potential?

A) Ask managers to nominate their subordinates who have the most management potential.
B) Review the performance appraisals for employees in the upper management.
C) Ask all the employees in the middle management to take extensive psychological tests.
D) Establish an assessment center which allows employees to nominate themselves.

Question 32

Which of the following statements is true of training and development?

A) Training is for hourly employees; development is for managers and professionals.
B) Training focuses on the long-run performance of an employee.
C) Development is typically assessed with a cost-benefit analysis.
D) Capabilities learned in development may not apply to the employee's current job.

Question 33

In general, women's career advancement is negatively affected by:

A) global development.
B) glass ceiling.
C) repatriation.
D) dual-career ladders.

Question 34

Marcie and Andrew are married. They are both professional employees at the City Zoological Park. Marcie is an exotic-animal veterinarian specializing in big cats, while Andrew is a designer of animal exhibits. The HR Director of a zoo in a different city wants to hire Marcie as chief of veterinary medicine for the zoo. Given this scenario, which of the following steps should be taken?

A) Ensuring that the glass ceiling situations are encouraged in the organization to make Marcie's transition smooth
B) Giving Andrew an inducement of a job equivalent to his current one so that he and Marcie will consider the relocation
C) Creating a dual career ladder in order to give Marcie more incentive to take the job
D) Meeting with Andrew and discussing the concept of career sequencing in order to explain how moving with Marcie will not affect his future career progression

Question 35

Wilderness excursions as a development tool:

A) are the enjoyable segment of indoor training.
B) can create a sense of teamwork via the shared risks and challenges.
C) act as an outdoor version of an assessment center.
D) are losing popularity because of the risk of reducing an employee's self-confidence.

Question 36

_____ involves the planning, training, and reassignment involved with returning global employees to their home countries.

A) Lateral transfer
B) Reorientation
C) Debriefing
D) Repatriation

Question 37

Which of the following statements is true?

A) Now that women are in the workforce in nearly the same proportion as men, the differences between men's and women's careers are expected to disappear by 2015.
B) Policies that encourage sequencing are needed in order to recruit women with children into the full-time workforce.
C) Glass ceiling allows women to efficiently strike a balance between their personal lives and careers.
D) Job sequencing has proven to be a successful career tactic for women wishing to combine work and family, since its impacts on career advancement are nonexistent.

Question 38

What impact does development have on an individual's career?

A) The employee is likely to acquire abilities to handle a variety of assignments that might not be required for his or her current position.
B) The employee's career goals will be subordinated to the organization's goals.
C) The individual's marketability at other organizations will be reduced due to employer-specific specialization.
D) The employee's ability to learn specific behaviors is likely to be compromised.

Question 39

Which of the following is a disadvantage of paid sabbaticals?

A) It has a negative impact on the employees' morale.
B) Employees tend to refuse sabbaticals because they fear it is a way for their managers to prove they are unimportant.
C) The nature of the learning experience is outside the organization's control.
D) Employees often use sabbaticals to look for other jobs.

Question 40

Which of the following is typically a concern about the use of assessment centers?

A) A clever participant can cheat in the tests and get an undeserved high management potential rating.
B) They tend to discriminate against minority individuals.
C) They are expensive considering that most psychological traits such as leadership and initiative can be accurately assessed by paper and pencil techniques.
D) Managers may use them as a way to avoid difficult promotion decisions.

Question 41

_____ is a relationship in which experienced managers in a company aid individuals in the earlier stages of their careers.

A) Sponsorship
B) Management coaching
C) Management mentoring
D) Modeling

Question 42

Succession planning should be done for all key jobs in the organization, even if they are low in the hierarchy.

Question 43

The implementation of formal succession planning is frequently viewed as one of the biggest threats facing small businesses.

Question 44

The nature of a business and the environment in which it operates has a bearing on the strategies used for talent management.

Question 45

What is the most common reason managers fail after being promoted to management?

A) Lack of confidence
B) Poor time management
C) Poor teamwork with subordinates and peers
D) Inability to balance work and family demands

Question 46

An automated talent management system helps in avoiding the termination of talented employees.

Question 47

Talent management is growing in importance because it is concerned with the attraction,
development, and retention of Human Resources.

Question 48

A centralized Web site for news, information, course listings, business games, simulations, and other training materials is called a(n):

A) learning portal.
B) interactive training and development program.
C) online corporate university.
D) simulation training program.

Question 49

For the less-experienced manager, the last stage in a successful mentoring relationship is _____ the mentor.

A) disengagement from
B) reversal of roles with
C) friendship with
D) replacement of

Question 50

Which of the following has been identified as a problem with mentoring?

A) Women executives are reluctant to serve as mentors either to other women or to men because they themselves received little help.
B) The proportion of racial and ethnic minorities holding senior management positions is low.
C) The relationship between mentor and protégé is frequently marked by a "break-up" when the protege advances in the hierarchy.
D) The most successful managers are too busy to be effective mentors, so junior managers are often mentored by less-talented senior managers.

Question 51

Clarence is the Assistant Vice President of quality control for a medical equipment manufacturing firm. However, Clarence is currently teaching science in a high school in Haiti. At the end of the school semester, Clarence will resume his job duties with his employer. Clarence is:

A) in phased retirement.
B) an executive educator.
C) rotating through a non-core function.
D) on a sabbatical leave.

Question 52

Senior managers and executives are often hired from outside a firm because:

A) it takes time to develop senior-level managers in-house.
B) promoting from middle management ranks causes extreme political jockeying.
C) the organization cannot control managers' experiences, so it cannot develop the managers it needs.
D) in order for useful learning to occur, managers must have positive and challenging experiences, and these are absent in-house.

Question 53

Succession planning is not important in countries like China and India, which have growing native workforces.

Question 54

David is a junior employee who has been identified as having high potential. However, he is performing poorly in his current job. This is a strong indication that the assessment of David's potential was wrong, and that David should be taken off the company's fast track development program.

Question 55

It is best for an organization to limit its intensive talent management efforts to its high-potential employees, to avoid resentment among the employees.

Question 56

Succession planning focuses both on emergency replacements for critical positions and making sure that other successors will be ready with some additional development.

Question 57

As companies become larger, the benefits of informal succession planning become greater.

Question 58

Kelly spent four days at a training program centered on the use of improved hygiene procedures to reduce infections in long-term care facilities. Six months later, Kelly has not been able to implement these methods due to resistance from the nursing staff and the lack of interest of the medical director. The HR term for Kelly's experience is:

A) translation failure.
B) nontransference of training.
C) encapsulated development.
D) cultural inertia.

Question 59

Davidson is the manager of the IT department of his company. He has appointed a consultant for helping him improve his interpersonal skills. The consultant is also working with Davidson to devise collaborative decision-making strategies that are efficient and effective. Davidson's consultant is best described as:

A) a management mentor.
B) a leadership coach.
C) an executive role model.
D) an arbitrator.

Question 60

Managers learn by behavior modeling, which involves:

A) reinforcement of the desirable behaviors spontaneously exhibited.
B) imitating the behavior of their own managers.
C) developing a personal model of ideal managerial behavior.
D) pairing junior managers with senior managers in assistant positions.

Question 61

Careers are not predictably linear but cyclical.

Question 62

Job loss as a career transition has been most associated with downsizing, mergers, and acquisitions.

Question 63

The career stage that hinders the job progression of many women with family responsibilities and blocks them from advancing to executive ranks is the late career stage.

Question 64

Organizations that have extensive employee development programs run the risk of being training centres for other firms that hire away their employees. Consequently, organizational development efforts need to be strictly tied to current and immediate organizational needs.

Question 65

One purpose of employee development is to help employees improve skills that they might not be able to improve in their ordinary life experiences.

Question 66

Phased-in retirement is generally used as a means of allowing older employees to gradually leave an organization.

Question 67

The modeling process involves only straightforward imitation and copying.

Question 68

Encapsulated development occurs when a single work unit in an organization is used to pilot test new training programs.

Question 69

At present, employees are less mobile and organizations are more stable as long-term employers.

Question 70

During the late career phase, an employee is typically concerned with external rewards
and acquiring capabilities.

Question 71

A plateaued employee who is capable of meeting performance expectations is a good candidate for a lateral move.

Question 72

When an HR manager does career planning for a high-potential employee who has a spouse with a professional occupation, it would be a good idea to consult with both the employee and the spouse.

Question 73

Although most career paths are thought of as leading upward, good opportunities also exist in cross-functional or horizontal directions.

Question 74

Most global firms find it is better to have expatriates rather than local staff at the management positions of their foreign operations because expatriates require less training and development than do the locals.

Question 75

Organization-centered career planning requires an individual employee to take charge of his/her career and chart a path of advancement through his/her organization.

Question 76

Job sequencing allows women to interrupt their careers for family considerations without having a negative impact on their ultimate advancement.

Question 77

Anne's supervisor is enthusiastic about introducing outdoor training into their organization. Anne is concerned that it may not be appropriate because of the physical nature of the training and the hazards involved. A number of Anne's subordinates are over 50 and some are physically challenged. Anne's concerns are realistic.

Question 78

In an effort to decrease turnover and increase management development capabilities, organizations are using specialized education for executives.

Question 79

Glass ceiling describes the situation in which women rapidly progress into top and senior positions.

Question 80

Job rotation tends to be an expensive form of employee development because it takes time for employees to become familiar with their new units.