Our Beginning
Building the future
The Institute for Career Transitions is a not-for-profit committed to generating effective strategies, offering data-driven practical support, and increasing public understanding of the challenges facing professionals in career transitions.
We do this by creating space for convening collaborative teams and providing support informed by the latest industry research and thinking.
Ofer Sharone, an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (and former professor at MIT), conducted original research on job search and unemployment for career transitions and strategies.
His work was published as the Flawed System/Flawed Self: Job Searching and Unemployment Experiences, prompting the question “would working with a coach make a difference in the outcomes?” [The answer: It does! ]
The importance of support:
the research that started ICT
Seeking to answer the question: Does working with a coach effect outcomes, Ofer recruited a team of 40 volunteer coaches and 100 job seekers from Metro Boston to develop strategic data-driven research-based initiatives to meet the needs of the long-term unemployed, focusing on 40- to 65-year-old workers with college degrees.
Ofer Sharone was interviewed in a 2013 Boston Globe article: Project aims to assist long-term unemployed; MIT professor launching effort to help them overcome barriers during career transitions.
Since then, ICT has undertaken several research initiatives to shed light on the issue and explore possible solutions.
Overall Impact Metrics:
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11 Collaboratory Cohorts
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2,500 people served since 2015
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184 Events, workshops and programs offered since 2015
EMERGING TRENDS
We’ve collected hundreds of stories from job seekers that have helped shape the Collaboratory. A work in-between work feedback-rich community to furnish the lost elements work usually provides and that are critical to our well-being: structure, social contact, collective effort/purpose, social identity/status, and regular activity.
Originally, our attention focused on a particularly overlooked population, veteran professionals experiencing a prolonged period between jobs. However, looking at emerging trends in the labor market — more frequent and lengthier job transitions, and fewer high quality meaningful jobs being created – we recognized a larger impact of the changing economy on work and well-being. Through research, education, advocacy and developing solutions, ICT’s mission is to help professionals regroup, recover and reimagine ways to create a rich and meaningful life in a changing economic landscape.
ICT envisions a society where every professional can sustain a career through inevitable uncertainties and in which “work” is an evolving concept.
Together, we can support one another through this unscripted journey better than if we try alone. Stay informed by joining our mailing list.