A job is an occupation, a career is something built through the love of passion.
Those building a career know the why, they are fuelled by the reasons they do what they do.
Those in a job know only the what, only the what must I do to keep this job and my “safety net” in life.
A career is a lifelong journey of exploration, the what if, the I could and the this would be amazing to try. It can be an arduous journey full of challenges no doubt and these will shape you, make and even at times break you.
Yet it is the building of a career that can define you, allow you to share with the world what you’re truly capable of, to understand maybe that this is what you were meant to do.
A job is a job, it’s an occupation that pays the bills, keeps the food on the table, it’s a steady approach to the modern way of living. A job is like a ship permanently in the harbour and ships were not made to stay in a harbour.
Careers are full of opportunities, full of ways to better and challenge oneself.
Careers are an opportunity to do something, be something and leave something bigger than yourself. They are joy, sadness, excitement, passion, failure and success all rolled up into one.
Jobs are like a bus, they come and go but rarely do they deviate from the”planned route”.
A career can be a labour of love, you’re building something that brings you purpose and hopefully joy. It’s a route for you to be of service to others and embrace all the opportunities life can bring if you’re willing to accept the challenge of course.
But a job or a career are just work you say, I’m not so sure my friend.
That’s what it’s all about really, the work, or is it?
Those who have jobs do the work with no questions, those who have careers are creating the changes to make our world that little bit better.
Do you ever think about what you’ll say when it’s all said and done?
I had a job and it was ok, it paid the bills and filled the days or did you do something more?
For those who chose the career, they built, they fought, they were lost at times but they built something that was true to themselves. It was hard, yet it was fun.
So what do you want?
The red pill or the blue pill?
A job or a career?
The choice is yours, but the real difference between a job and a career? Maybe it’s about leading a life worth living or living a life.
For more sporadic daily thoughts like this, please subscribe to my weekly newsletter where I share insights, experiences and research on learning, personal development and managing the monkey mind.
I’ve put together this impromptu post after I contributed to a Reddit conversation on how to build a great cv and why recruiters aren’t contacting you about that dream job.
How many times have you been asked the question, “So, what do you do?”
I wonder if people even know what they mean when they ask that.
I usually respond to this question with comical answers for my benefit. Sometimes I revert to my completely sarcastic self. I’ll say, “Well, I’m a confused late-thirty-something with no clue what’s next, worries about the future, and now I’m trying to find my best self…what about you?”
They often respond with blank stares.
When I try to explain what I actually do for work, those stares become even deeper.
Although impressive in my head, explaining to others that I juggle 10 different job roles to make cold hard cash complicates things. The problem is that we use a ‘job’ as the reference point for the explanation. Whereas, the title means nothing. I deploy a diverse set of skills to create a career I enjoy.
But that doesn’t sound as sexy or aligned with the ‘societal view.’
So, I just mumble something like, “I work in learning and development. What about you?”
Conversations with strangers at parties, events, or whatever always turn into unexpected learning experiences. The weird intro of ‘Who are you and what do you do?’ has always felt odd to me.
Do they ask me what I do as a human, or do they just want to know about the job that pays me and provides my standing in society?
Come to think of it, why do we make professional occupation the first thing we ask people we’ve just met? Who even made this the norm? – so many questions.
Job titles create a mess
We often use them to determine how to value someone and what they’re good at. Most of us know they don’t work, yet we still play the game. They form the wrong metric on any playing field. Value comes from many measurements and is incredibly context-specific.
For work in the modern era, job titles mean nothing.
Skills act as the currency we must focus on in the career economy. Many companies have woken up to this in the last few years.
We’ve seen an explosion of “skills-based organisations” like they’re some newfound religion. In reality, skills have always driven success. The corporate world just chose to ignore them.
If you didn’t focus on skill improvement all this time, what were you doing?
The skills economy
We now play in a new economy of skills, and digital technology has only advanced this shift.
Era-defining tech innovations often bring this shift. We saw it in the eras of modern computing and the internet. We’re experiencing it now with the rise of generative AI technology.
New tech always enhances the way we do tasks. I think the word ‘job’ is where people get stuck. For so long, people moved through company tiers based on a job title.
We should step back to deconstruct what we mean by the term “job.”
Jobs basically consist of a collection of tasks for which you’re responsible. In exchange for financial compensation, you provide skills to complete these tasks. Today, we talk more about skills than titles. This makes sense because when tasks change, roles change.
For example, 20 years ago, the role of Social Media Manager didn’t exist.
Although commonplace today, the technology required to create the demand for this role had not yet exploded. We hadn’t become glued to our screens in a hypnotic state of doom-scrolling. These roles eventually came along to amplify that.
This role emerged due to the demand for new tasks.
Thus, the ‘job’ of social media manager was born. Over many years, it replicated into a family of roles to manage social media platform-related tasks. This family of roles is now evolving with the introduction of generative AI tools. The way people perform these tasks is changing, so the nature of these roles changes too.
Here we have the circle of life or the circle of work…something like that.
AI exposes the need for diverse skills
That sounds like a ‘captain obvious’ thing to say, but hey, it’s written now.
Each new digital tech innovation brings job destruction and creation. Again, a natural cycle in the shifting demands of life and work. I believe that in the long term, we’ll use generative AI, and other models, to manage boring tasks. This gives us the space, energy, and focus to do more human stuff.
I see Gen AI enabling more builders.
Not everyone can or will want to be a builder. However, the choice will be more accessible than before. This will offer a host of new skills, tasks, and jobs.
For L&D, we could enable more of us to design better solutions across the spectrum of our industry effectively. Finally, leaving behind L&D teams as a dumping site to take care of all the bits and bobs. Let AI do that.
In some ways, I hope Gen AI can enhance our skills and tasks, so we can be more strategic and meaningful in where we put our effort.
My last three years of exploring and experimenting have made one thing clear: The need for diverse human and tech skills is growing at a pace I’ve not experienced in my lifetime.
Skills, not job titles = opportunity
Outside of Gen AI’s potential to enhance learning, the value of your skills has been (and always will be) a big focus of my work.
I positioned the idea of skills being the currency in the career marketplace in my book.
I’ve seen many examples of this in my nearly 20-year (shit, I’m getting old) career. Those who do well and create the career they want all crafted a diverse set of skills. They didn’t rely on being so and so at x company.
To thrive in the modern era, we must leave behind what we know about the career economy.
“What got you here won’t get you there”
Technology will continue to change how we complete tasks. Focusing on our skills will yield better opportunities than aiming for a title.
Skills killed the job title and that’s not a bad thing.
Will x take my job?
The most popular question at the time I write this is, “Will AI take my job?”
As we’ve discussed, it’s not the jobs that are shifting, but rather the tasks that form that job. So, the job will likely change. You can take out the word AI and replace it with all these innovations from our history:
Will the Printing Press take my job?
Will the Calculator take my job?
Will the Internet take my job?
Will PowerPoint take my job?
Will Excel take my job?
We know what happened here.
For some, it did, but then they had new tasks which formed new roles. Those who did well were the ones who had diverse skills and adapted. In the early ’90s, accountants feared Excel. Now they wield it like some dark magic which has greatly enhanced how they work.
To ride the wave of inevitable change, craft the best skills for the era you work in.
The skills you should focus on
The answer to this is incredibly subjective based on your industry.
From a broader perspective, we can look at high-value skills that will serve us well in the future across any industry. I spent 12 months reviewing over 20 global skills reports to answer the ultimate question: “What are the 5 skills that matter for the future of work?”
Honestly you can. Mentors aren’t just people you have to meet in person, they can be the authors of the books you read, the hosts of the podcasts you listen to.
While I might be somewhat young in life and my career (and yes to those who know me personally, I am referring to my 35 years of age as young) still, I’ve somehow already amassed over 15 years of experience in the corporate world and with this, a lesson or two to share on building a rewarding career.
