Bernard Haldane is widely recognized as the key innovator in the field of career development.
Born on May 15, 1911, Haldane was raised in England. In 1927, he received the First Certificate at the Royal College of Surgeons. Haldane then relocated to the United States. When he learned that the medical establishment of New York would not accept his British "pre-med" certificate, Haldane decided to pursue a different career path.
Haldane worked several odd jobs in New York, where he developed an interest in writing and labor relations. He served as the Associate Editor of the
At this time, Haldane formed the Executive Job Counselors Service (EJCS) as an umbrella organization for his new career counseling and placement business. The EJCS philosophy was simple: "People who enjoy their work, do it better." As such, Haldane strived to develop a counseling technique to help people discover their strengths in order to find the type of work that would make them happy, valued employees. In 1947, his article, "A Pattern for Executive Placement," was published in the
In 1947, Haldane also formed Bernard Haldane Associates (BHA) as a job counseling firm. BHA filled a rising demand from individuals seeking job counseling and organizations seeking help with personnel issues. BHA offices were opened in New York and shortly thereafter in Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington, D.C. Subsequent BHA offices have been opened in cities throughout the United States and abroad.
In order to institutionalize his process and make it widely available, Haldane developed manuals for career counselors to help individuals examine their life experiences to uncover talents and their own unique pattern of skills. Haldane developed the System to Identify Motivated Skills (SIMS) and Success Factor Analysis (SFA) as two such methods. Haldane also authored fourteen books on the subject of job searches and career changes, including
In 1961, Haldane created a non-profit organization, the Foundation for Re-Employment, to assist public institutions, government agencies, religious, and civic groups with their employment and personnel needs. Haldane devoted considerable time and energy to this not-for-profit complement to his other job counseling endeavors.
During his long career, Haldane served a broad range of clients, including the Harvard Business School, United States Atomic Energy Commission, the United States Peace Corps, the United States Forest Service, several large corporations, dozens of educational and religious organizations, and hundreds of individual clients. Haldane was recognized by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, primarily for his work with young people and disadvantaged adults.
In 1966, Haldane met Jean Kind, who had emigrated from England for work. The couple married in 1967. That same year, Haldane moved his headquarters from New York City to Washington, D.C.. There, Haldane oversaw BHA operations while Jean worked on staff at the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. Together, Jean and Bernard translated Haldane's identification of talents and skills aimed at job-finding to the church setting. They provided consultations, workshops, and training for clergy and lay leaders around the world.
In 1974, Bernard Haldane formally retired from Bernard Haldane Associates and sold the company to individuals within the organization. The company still exists and operates under that name, with approximately 100 offices in the United States and abroad. As part of the sales agreement, Haldane agreed to work only with organizational clients and to cease individual client counseling. With the sale of BHA, Haldane was free to pursue related interests and research. Haldane's work focused primarily on religious, educational and youth groups and major organizational clients, such as the United States Forest Service, after 1974.
In 1977, Bernard and Jean Haldane relocated to Seattle, Washington. In his retirement, Haldane expanded his research and writing to focus on young adults, teens, deprived youth, and church ministry. He developed the Dependable Strengths Articulation (DSA) process as a result of his decades of job counseling and research. DSA was developed to help individuals identify their strengths and motivated skills in order to become more productive, achieve higher degrees of job satisfaction and develop self-esteem.
Bernard and Jean Haldane worked on various projects and conducted many leadership training sessions using the Dependable Strengths philosophy. In 1987, Bernard met Jerald Forster, a professor at the University of Washington's College of Education, who was interested in understanding why the DSA process was so effective. Thus began a 15 year research and learning collaboration between Haldane and the College of Education, known as the Dependable Strengths Project. The DSA process has been applied in colleges, high schools, WorkFirst job search training programs, with prisoners, in churches, non-profit organizations, youth groups, government agencies, and assisted living centers.
In 1997, Bernard and Jean Haldane began to explore how the Dependable Strengths process might be applied in other parts of the world. The couple took a long sabbatical and travelled to six countries, including South Africa. The Haldane's project was warmly received by the Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg, where the Dependable Strengths Foundation was established as a non-profit organization in 2003.
Bernard Haldane died in Seattle, Washington, on July 21, 2002, at the age of 91.
Arranged into 6 series:
The Bernard Haldane Papers contain business records, personal papers, client files, Haldane's writings, and the writings of others. The majority of the material is from 1946 to 2000. This collection documents Haldane's long and prolific career, including the early years of Haldane's efforts at career counseling and the formation of his businesses, Executive Job Counselors and Bernard Haldane Associates, as well as his non-profit endeavors, the Foundation for Re-Employment, the Dependable Strengths Project and the Dependable Strengths Institute.
Because Haldane was the leader in the field of job placement and career counseling, these papers document the formation and changes in the history of this field, and reflect Haldane's methods and theories employed in job counseling and the changes in those methods over several decades of work. His many manuals, articles, drafts and promotional materials also offer insight into Haldane's perspectives and promotional methods.
Open to all users but portions of the papers restricted. Contact Special Collections for details.
Restrictions may exist on reproduction, quotation, or publication.
Gift of Jean Haldane, 2004.
Processed by Melinda Snarr; processing completed in 2007.
13 books, including books by Haldane, were relocated to the Pacific Northwest Collection in 2006. One button (for "Golden Days, Fairbanks, Alaska, 1979") was relocated to the Button, Medals, and Ribbons collection, accession 5130-001, in 2006.
This series is arranged by material type and alphabetically. Correspondence is arranged into two sequences: one chronological and another listed by correspondent and topic. Original order has been maintained whenever possible.
This series includes a wide range of materials from Haldane's personal and professional life. It includes biographical information, such as versions of Haldane's resumes and several biographical statements. It contains correspondence and memos spanning several decades. The administrative records pertaining to several of Haldane's business and non-profit enterprises, such as Bernard Haldane Associates, Executive Job Counselors, and the Foundation for Re-Employment, are included in this series. The series also includes teaching records from Haldane's appointment at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and a number of subject files on topics, individuals, and organizations that Haldane collected over the course of several decades.
Includes eight studio portraits from circa 1945 to 1956, portrait session negatives, and two contact sheets from portrait session, circa 2000. Also includes two miscellaneous portraits on newsprint, portrait of Jean Haldane circa 1970, and photograph of a panel discussion at the National Rocket Club in Washington, D.C., circa 1960s.
Includes copies of a telegram from John F. Kennedy and a letter from Lyndon Johnson.
Includes pamphlets and brochures
Includes contracts.
Contains conference reports.
Includes promotional material.
Includes two photographs of Tampa employees at the Tampa Catholic High School with the book
Contains materials gathered and created by Jean Haldane.
Contains blueprints and diagrams.
Contains photocopy of Harvard University's 1948
Gaylord Herendeen was an important mentor to Bernard Haldane during the early years of his career. Herendeen was a personnel officer at the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. He arranged for Bernard Haldane to become a volunteer secretary for New York Mayor Fiorello Laguardia's unofficial kitchen cabinet.
Restricted.
Includes copyright certificates.
Contains transcripts of Bernard Haldane's spiritual communications.
This series contains records of Haldane's job counseling work with individual and organizational clients from approximately 1946 until 1974, when Haldane formally retired and sold Bernard Haldane Associates to colleagues within the organization. The materials in this collection provide insight into Haldane's counseling methods and the job seeking process from the mid-1940s until the mid-1970s.
This series includes completed biographical questionnaires, resumes, and Job Power reports, as well as Haldane's notes about specific clients, correspondence, and material he created for specific organizational clients. It also includes programs for workshops and consulting engagements, feedback reports and evaluations of Haldane's services, as well as testimonials written by clients.
Includes eight photographs of workshop sessions and meetings.
Includes one photograph of Haldane with workshop attendees.
Restricted because of personal privacy.
Closed until 2048 because of personal privacy.
Includes one photograph of workshop participants.
Includes an article written by Haldane in a Virginia Theological Seminary publication.
Closed until 2044 because of personal privacy.
Restricted.
Restricted.
This series contains client files after 1974. This series contains records from the last several decades of Haldane's job counseling work after he had sold Bernard Haldane Associates to colleagues and formally retired from the organizations. The files include biographical questionnaires, resumes, and Job Power reports, as well as Haldane's notes about clients, correspondence, and material he created for specific organizational clients. It also includes programs for workshops and consulting engagements, feedback reports and evaluations of Haldane's services, as well as testimonials written by clients. The materials in this series provide insight into Haldane's counseling methods during the latter half of his career, when he worked almost exclusively with organizational clients, including government agencies, churches, schools, and civic groups.
Materials in this file pertain to the Older Americans Program and Haldane's work with retirees.
Horizon House is the retirement community where Haldane lived at the end of his life.
Restricted.
Restricted.
Restricted.
This series contains records related to specific projects Haldane conducted over the course of his career. Records of the Dependable Strengths Project, a formal partnership with the University of Washington College of Education, forms the bulk of this series. This series also includes the records of projects conducted by organizations for which Haldane was an advisor, such as Together in Employment (TIE), of the Diocese of Olympia, Washington. Records of projects pertaining to specific job-counseling and training work with individual and organizational clients, such as the Paterson Project and the Valdosta Project, are located in the client files series.
This file contains records related to Haldane's work with Southeast Asian refugees, whom he helped to find jobs and to manage the transition to life in the United States.
Includes United States Forest Service material.
Roberts was a University of Washington Extension employee and worked closely with Haldane on the Dependable Strengths Project.
Restricted.
This series contains finished writings and drafts written by Haldane over approximately 70 years. Included are published articles, drafts, portions of book chapters, essays, and similar material. Counseling and procedural manuals are also included in this series, as are promotional material, press releases, and advertisements created by or for Bernard Haldane to promote his job counseling services.
Contains pamphlets and similar materials written by Bernard Haldane.
This series contains writings of others that Haldane or his wife, Jean Haldane, collected. It includes several articles written about Haldane and his work, as well as clippings and articles of interest to Haldane, typically regarding the job market and labor issues. Curriculum based on Haldane's Dependable Strengths process is also included in this series.