About
Brief Bio
Paula Caligiuri, Ph.D. is a work psychologist dedicated to helping people navigate the professional and personal challenges associated with their careers. She is the author of several books including Get a Life, Not a Job: Do What You Love and Let Your Talents Work for You, which FT Press will publish in April 2010, and the career blog. Dr. Caligiuri is a frequent contributor to CNN on career and management topics and has completed a pilot for a television show, CareerWATCH.
Dr. Caligiuri is also a Professor in the Human Resource Management Department at Rutgers University, where she teaches courses in career management and global human resources at the masters, PhD, and executive levels. She is an internationally recognized expert on global careers and strategic human resource management. She has lectured in numerous universities and has been a speaker for many major corporations in the United States, Asia, and Europe.
As a consultant, Dr. Caligiuri is the President of Caligiuri and Associates, Inc., a consulting firm that advises leading global organizations on ways to ensure the success of their internationally-oriented talent through assessment, training, and development.
Dr. Caligiuri holds a M.S. and Ph.D. from Penn State University in industrial and organizational psychology.
A Note About My Career – from Paula
A few days after my 16th birthday I landed my first job at a local department store, earning minimum wage and a 20% employee discount. To celebrate my personal milestone, my brother Tom, who is 10 years older, treated me to ice cream. I was barely through the sprinkles on the sundae when Tom offered some brotherly advice. His words, and my reaction to them, shaped my relationship with work to this day: “kid, the good news is that you got the job. The bad news is that you’ll be working for the rest of your life.” While I may have been more interested in my ice-cream than in my brother’s advice, I vividly remember thinking “why is it bad news, I won’t work at a job I don’t enjoy.” I quit the department store after a few months as I felt my creativity was clearly being stifled (stodgy management didn’t appreciate my inspired efforts to re-arrange the displays).
Leveraging my teenage core competence of flirting, I began working for a tuxedo rental shop a few doors away from the department store in the same strip mall. Other than an occasional bad mother-in-law throwing a temper tantrum over a missing bow-tie, the clients were happy (and mostly male), the colleagues were fun (and very young), and the company was great (throwing many parties, in retrospect, I was probably too young to be attending). I happily wielded my tape measure at the tuxedo shop until my second year of college.
The rest of my career trajectory was a continuous toggle of degrees and work-related self-discovery. I tried jobs. I left jobs. I liked jobs. I hated jobs. More than anything, I explored what I liked to do and how I liked to work – and kept moving if I wasn’t happy.
I earned a BA from Canisius College in Buffalo and an MS and PhD in industrial and organizational psychology (i.e., work psychology) from Penn State University. While climbing the educational ladder, I worked in a variety of locations: Buffalo, State College, PA, Seattle, New York City, and (my personal favorite) Rome, Italy. In Rome, I connected with my love for international management. Thankfully, my career exploration came with brilliant guides and mentors: Judy Larkin and Harvey Pines (at Canisius College) and Rick Jacobs and Jim Farr (at Penn State). They helped me discover my strengths, explore my interests, polish my skills, and find the type of career that was best suited to me. Stoking my curiosity, they helped me discover my passion for the creative and analytic process of research.
My academic career formally began with my first university appointment at Rutgers University in 1995 where I am today. I have the support of colleagues I deeply respect, freedom to research and teach the topics I love, and the opportunity to travel and work internationally, spending time in England, Singapore, India, Spain, Australia, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, and Italy (the latter, my favorite). As a Full Professor of Human Resource Management and the Director of the Center for Human Resource Strategy at Rutgers I greatly enjoy my career -- thankfully, I am given the freedom to metaphorically change the displays from time to time.
In the past few years, I have been recognized as one of the most prolific authors in the field of international business for my work in global careers and global leadership development. (For those suffering from insomnia, I invite you to read my academic journal articles.) With a focus on global careers, I have written (with Steven Poelmans) a book for HR professionals entitled Harmonizing Work, Family, and Personal Life (Cambridge Press, 2008). My HRM textbook (with Dave Lepak and Jaime Bonache), Managing the Global Workforce (Wiley) is due out in 2010.
In addition to my writing, researching, teaching, and career counseling – I have been a speaker for many major corporations in the United States, Asia, and Europe. I also discuss career-related topics on CNN and have hosted a pilot for a television show called CareerWATCH.
On the personal note, I am married, living in New Jersey with my husband George and stepdaughter Gabrielle. We have a lake house in New York where I hideaway to write and spend wonderful days with family and friends. George and I were married in Ravello, Italy (on the Amalfi Coast), our adopted home away from home.
