Building your career

Setting off on your career journey

The definition of a career has changed over the last 15 or so years to keep pace with the rapidly changing nature of work. We often use the terms 'career', 'job' and 'occupation' as though we are talking about the same thing. But your career is something much larger than a job or an occupation. Many people use the term career to mean the job, occupation or vocation a person does. However a career involves much more than does a job, an occupation, or a vocation. A career is the pattern of work or work-related activities that develops throughout a lifetime. It includes a job or series of jobs that a person has until retirement. Most people build careers to help them satisfy certain goals.

Your career is the variety of experiences of learning and work (both unpaid and paid) that you undertake throughout your lifetime. If you want to take charge of the development of your career, you will need to actively manage your learning and your work.

Developing your career is not an easy or a short process. Our careers are influenced by many things, such as our age, our gender and our ability/disability. Our careers are also influenced by our families and our cultural values. Chance also plays a part.

But it is up to you to plan, build and manage your lifelong career journey. You are the person best suited to make choices on the basis of your unique skills, knowledge, interests, personal circumstances and preferences. However, you will not be alone. You will have lots of allies along the way, particularly if you act as an ally yourself to other people when you can. Keep your eyes open for those who may be able to help you and for those you may be able to help.

You will need to be flexible. In the 21st century, very few people will have a job or occupation for life. In this ever-changing environment, you will need to keep learning to keep pace. The good news is that it is very difficult to go through life without changing, growing and learning. It is important, however, that as far as possible, you actively manage this process, rather than just letting it happen.