It's Not Your Father's Career Anymore
By Norman Fraley Jr., distance learning manager for Kelly Scientific Resources
Merriam-Webster's 2000 Collegiate Dictionary defines career as:
1 : a field for or pursuit of consecutive progressive achievement, especially in public, professional, or business life
2 : a profession for which one trains and which is undertaken as a permanent calling career diplomat>.
It defines profession as:
1 : a calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation, or
2 : a principal calling, vocation, or employment.
By these definitions, therefore, there is no such thing as a career anymore.
What Does It Matter the Knowledge and Skills You Have if You Have No Desire to Use Them?
"In the War for Talent, the War is Over…Talent Won."
"Career" Redefined
What Does It Matter the Knowledge and Skills You Have if You Have No Desire to Use Them? (Back to Top)
Here are a couple of interesting statistics for you to think about. Only 26% of the students entering college before age 20 actually complete a bachelor's degree, according to National Education Association data. Over 80% of the people who graduate with a bachelor's degree are not working in their chosen field of study four years after graduation. So much for the "often long and intensive academic preparation" part of the development of a profession as well as the "permanent calling" part as well. Now I'll agree that a primary goal of the university educational system is to expose students to a universe of experiences and perhaps even to help teach them how to learn. However, taking these two statistics as an indication of the success of the system in preparing people for a career, I'd have to say I'm not impressed. By far the largest percentage of students entering college today enter as an "undecided major." Evidently they graduate and subsequently work that way as well.
"In the War for Talent, the War is Over…Talent Won." (Back to Top)
We have found that within the scientific community, and in other professional occupations as well, there exists a growing pool of talented people that wish to take charge of their working lives and want some help doing it. By virtue of being in the scientific staffing industry, we have determined that this shift to self-actualized worker greatly impacts our effectiveness as an employer. We have had to change our way of interacting and supporting the employees we serve. At a quickly growing pace our recruiters have had to become more like "life and career coaches" and much less like headhunters. We have had to make the shift to focusing on the candidate and help them figure out what they want then help them to get it. This involves much more psychology and considerably less time cataloging skills.
We are entering an age of self-realization. Talented people are realizing that their skills are worth something and that their unique collection of experiences qualifies them for more and better consideration in the working world. It stands to reason then, that next follows a period of self-actualization. This will be a time where the self-realized will start doing something about it. There is evidence that this is already happening. We see this in the growing number of people who categorize themselves as "free-agents" in the workforce. These free-agents basically work with the following mission statement: "I will choose to do the work I want to do, when I want to do it, for whom I wish to do it for, as long as I care to do it, and for as much as I care to charge to get it done." Wow. You have got to love that, it's truly a vision to strive for. But how do you do it?
Some people achieve this mission by becoming "consultants." Others achieve it by becoming "temporary" or "contract" employees. No matter the title used, each of these are fundamentally the same job—go work for someone to do a job for as long as it takes to get it done without ever becoming an actual employee of the person you are working for. People have been trained for centuries to pay exorbitant fees for consultants, hoping to benefit from the tremendous talent residing within the person. That's funny, it seems that this is the expectation employers have of their employees as well, but without the exorbitant fees. Or perhaps employers do not believe their employees possess tremendous talent or the pay would be higher.
At any rate, if you want work without benefits while dealing with invoicing, collections, tax withholdings, business law, and marketing, and you like the thought of getting paid 90—120 days after you do the work, then by all means become a consultant. If you want someone else to do the collections, withholdings, and invoicing and pay you the week after you do the work, then approach the temp agencies and ask them to become your payroll service partner. If there is enough work to do within a specific company to keep you busy for a while, then write up a contract for employment that gets you a bit closer to the typical job arrangement. Be warned however, the more burden you avoid the more it will cost you in revenue. If you do not want to deal with the hassle, someone else is willing to deal with it for you—for a price.
"Career" Redefined (Back to Top)
I I do not think the concept of a career will be going away any time soon, no matter how poorly that the definition fits these days. I do recommend that the concept of career be changed to reflect reality a bit more closely. How about this: one can be considered to have a career only if one continues to work within a particular industry or category of employment. For example, you can have a career in education without having to have a career in teaching. Or you may have a career in science by continuing to work supporting research or scientists but no longer be "at the bench." This kind of definition allows you to define your career in terms of your interests, knowledge, and skill rather than by job title or profession.