I read quite a few blogs, and I come across a variety of career advice as I do. It’s hard to know who is a credible source for this type of advice. For instance, shouldn’t someone with a site called I Will Teach You to be Rich actually be rich? I don’t know whether he (the blogger) is or he isn’t. He’s a young entrepreneur, who graduated with an undergraduate degree maybe a couple of years ago. He has a successful book and a large community on his blog. Maybe he is “rich,” though rich isn’t a state of being (I’m not sure the title agrees with the English language), anyway maybe he wants to teach you to get rich (or become rich?) rather than teaching you to be rich? But I digress. Even if someone is rich, you need to evaluate their advice carefully and determine whether it’s relevant to your particular situation.
Everywhere I turn I run into career advice on blogs. Should people that blog for a living be giving career advice? This isn’t an attack. In fact, I think that some career oriented blog’s are excellent. Penelope Trunk’s blog for example, is full of excellent content. She limits herself to observations she has personally made, and she backs up her thoughts with sound reasoning and statistics.
Seeing all this career advice on the web has made me think back to some of the career advice I’ve gotten over the course of my life, which I plan on laying out over the course of several posts over the next few weeks. An uncle once gave me this advice: Early in your career, you want to have broad experiences. As you get older, specialize in a sustainable area in which you have some talent and ability.
Many companies have taken my uncle’s advice. General Electric, for example, puts its young managers into its management trainee program, where every trainee spends 6 months in a particular job, before moving on to another job for the next six. In their first two years, General Electric’s young managers do four different jobs. This allows GE to identify the strengths and weaknesses of its young managerial talent. They can measure each trainee’s productivity in each area to see where the trainee might be most valuable to the company. The experience is valuable to the trainees as well. They have the opportunity to see what they like, and what they’re good at. Plus, they develop contacts with a variety of people in different fields. Lots of other companies have followed suit with a model similar to GE’s.
Early in your career, this is the type of experience you want to have. You want to get as much exposure to as many areas as possible. This is an opportunity for self-discovery. Most people don’t know exactly what they want to do right out of the gate. They don’t need to. The days where people start with a company and spend their entire career there are gone. Employees aren’t loyal to companies and companies, in turn, aren’t loyal to their employees.
This also provides a good argument for adopting a “portfolio career” early on. Instead of doing one thing for a living, why not have two careers simultaneously? This gives you a chance to try several things on and decide where you’ll be happy. This is an idea that appeals to me. I plan to continue to work at my job as an attorney, but I’m starting a side business as well. This will give me the opportunity to decide what I’d like to pursue in the future. It also gives me flexibility and income diversification.
Based on the theory of the division of labor, though, it makes sense for people to eventually specialize, so we can reach our optimum productivity. A portfolio career can definitely help you figure out exactly where you want to spend the rest of your career and where you can be the most productive (and happiest!). Thanks for reading.
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#1 by @MattWilsontv on May 5th, 2009 - 8:52 am
At Bryant University, I worked really hard to establish our Entrepreneurship Major as part of the business school. The major question that was asked–is it too broad? Aren’t you supposed to specialize? What the heck is entrepreneurship education anyway?
To run your own enterprise you need broad exposure to everything–you’ve got to speak all the languages–mkt, finance, IT, accounting, but you don’t have to be an expert. Most e-ship majors will find their passion/their expertise, bring that to the table in their next venture and build a team around that to fill the gaps.
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Todd Reply:
May 5th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Hi Matt – that logic makes perfect sense to me. Build teams that help prop you up in your weakest areas, but make sure you have a broad base of knowledge so you can speak the language. I totally agree. Thanks for contributing.
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#2 by Barrie Hopson on May 9th, 2009 - 9:13 am
Could not agree with you more about portfolio careers – but then I have just written a book about it with Katie Ledger. It is out in October in the UK. Still waiting to hear about the US date. Its called. “And What Do You Do?: 10 Steps to Creating a Portfolio Career”. Our quick intro into the project reads as follows:
Portfolio careers – a new work/life blend
Does work mean 9 to 5, Monday to Friday? Does it mean going to an office/workspace a long commute from your home? Does it mean hard and fast hours, line manager, General Manager, fixed holidays and entitlements?
Is work something we don’t like doing? And “life” something we do?
We spend so many hours of our lives working, shouldn’t we do things we enjoy and get some personal value out of? A job is not for life – it’s for however long it works for you. And we suggest there is another way to find health, happiness and fulfilment in your work. It’s called a
Portfolio career – working at two or more jobs for different employers.
It’s not an easy option. It’s good if you can multitask. It helps to have a strong support network. And you need to be a brilliant time manager and organiser.
We’ve been discovering that thousands and maybe millions of people have been and are developing portfolio careers without being aware that this style of working has a name.
This book describes the 10 steps you need to follow if you want to develop a portfolio career for yourself.
We have 2 examples in the book of lawyers who are doing quite different jobs simultaneously – how about a chef and cookery book writer!
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Todd Reply:
May 10th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Hi Barrie, thanks for the contribution. I’d love to take a look at the book if you’re looking for people to review it before the US release date.
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