The Bernard Haldane Story

Career Satisfaction and Success

The last two blog posts were entitled Achieving Career Success and Achieving Career Satisfaction.  Both topics were covered at a conceptual level, and Bernard Haldane’s name was mentioned at the end of the last blog post.  For anyone seeking a practical and detailed understanding of the career development process—as it applies to a specific individual—that person should read Bernard Haldane’s book: “Career Satisfaction and Success: A Guide to Job and Personal Freedom.”

Born in England in 1911, Haldane wrote more than a dozen books, and completed this one toward the end of his career at age 85 in 1996.  He worked until the end of his life at age 91 in 2002.

When once asked about where he had learned career counseling, Haldane responded, “I invented it.” That was apparently not an idle boast.

Peter F. Drucker, the management expert and business consultant who wrote the Foreword to the 1996 edition of Haldane’s book called him a “pathfinder in finding human strength and making it productive.”

President John F. Kennedy once praised Haldane’s contributions to the field of career counseling in a telegram that read: “Progress in helping people use their highest skills not only helps the individual worker, it also helps our entire country.” 

Haldane is widely credited with helping hundreds of veterans find jobs after World War II and for getting laid-off Boeing workers back in the job market.  He is also credited with helping thousands of people prepare successfully for job interviews.

His word of mouth success in helping people get jobs prompted him to establish a company “Bernard Haldane Associates, Job Counselors,” in 1947.  He ran and grew that company for the next 27 years.  He sold it to new owners in 1974 and thereby ended his association with the company that bore his name.

By the time of Haldane’s death 28 years later in 2002, the management of the company was presiding over nearly 100 Bernard Haldane offices worldwide!  But unfortunately, at about this same time, the company began to attract a negative reputation with some clients in certain cities who took their complaints public via social media.  This situation was documented in a 2002 article in the New York Times.  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/04/business/career-management-company-fights-complaints.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm.  And from there, things got even worse.

By 2004, the Better Business Bureau was responding to inquiries from disgruntled clients of Bernard Haldane Associates by stating that, by all appearances, the company was no longer in business.

I was a very satisfied client of Bernard Haldane Associates, having worked with its Philadelphia office in 1971.  Dr. Haldane was still in charge of the company then and, based on my experience, his company was a model of integrity and success.  I worked with that same office 20 years later in 1991, some 17 years after Bernard Haldane had sold the company and, once again, it was still a solid company providing excellent and valuable service to its clients.

It is a sad fact that the management of Bernard Haldane Associates eventually ran the company into the ground some 28 years after Haldane had sold it. It is perhaps fortunate that he did not live to see the tragic end of the magnificent company he had created 55 years earlier. 

But Bernard Haldane’s ideas and methods still work, as my long career can attest, and his book—Career Satisfaction and Success—is definitely worth reading and using as a job search and career development guide.  I benefited greatly from the advice in that book and owe my career to the lessons I learned from Bernard Haldane Associates while his company was still faithful to his philosophy, principles and values.

So while one can no longer go into a Bernard Haldane Associates office to purchase the wonderful hands-on help the company once offered, one can luckily still read his wonderful book on the subject. 

Career Satisfaction and Success is divided into three parts:  Part I – Perspectives for Employees; Part II – Perspectives for Employers; and Part III – Perspectives for Job Searchers.

Perspectives for Employees

Part I: 1) Know Your Strengths – The Way to Job Success; 2) Overcome Resistance to Change; 3) Explore for Your Strengths; 4) Enlarge Your Attainable Dreams; 5) Compare Your Goals with Others’ Goals; 6) Coping With and Solving Career Problems; 7) Get a Raise; 8) Plan for the Future – Promotion and Advancement; 9) Develop or Renew Your Career; and 10) Prepare for Your Career Future.

Perspectives for Employers

Part II: 11) Identify Employees’ Motivated Skills; 12) Maximize Employee Usefulness with the SIMS Process; 13) Provide Reemployment Counseling; 14) Identify Dependable Strengths – Key to Greater Productivity.

Perspectives for Job Searchers

Part III: 15) Be a Job Magnet That Attracts Job Offers. 

Haldane’s book is available through Amazon at the following link.  I recommend it highly. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Career+Satisfaction+and+Success+Bernard+Haldane.