10 Differences Between Job And Career Common similarities
Difference between Job and Career: For most people, job and career are one and the same term used to describe whatever activity someone engages in to earn a living. However, a job is something you do simply to earn money; a career is a series of connected employment opportunities.
In some respects, they share similarities insofar as they are activities that one way or another provides emoluments for daily sustenance. In other respects, however, they are polar opposites especially in how they involve the doer’s personal interests and passions.
Notable Differences Between Jobs And Careers
1. Meaning: A job can refer to an economic role a person plays in an independent or organizational structure to earn pay. A career however has more to do with one’s peculiar path in life, leaning more to his/her passions, and involving a profession or occupation in that direction.
2. Value derived: Usually for a job, the only value(s) derived in exchange for one’s time and contribution is money. For a career, typically, the value one seeks to derive is far more. One should derive fulfillment, a sense of accomplishment, and an accomplishment of a lifelong ambition.
3. Ends: A job is hardly ever an end in itself. It is a means to an end. For instance, Deborah needs money to pay her fees. She takes up a job as a waiter at a restaurant—as the means to earn money, which is the end. However, if Deborah’s lifelong dream was to have a wrestling career and she gets into wrestling, the activities in that career are not just means to an end, but ends in themselves.
4. Duration: Usually, jobs are performed for way shorter periods than careers. Many people can and have performed many jobs for short periods of time. The same can hardly be said of careers that are long-term and generally involve the greater portion of a person’s lifetime.
5. Work time: The working times of most jobs are highly regularized. The popular 9 – 5s are examples. Careers on the other hand are far more flexible with work time. The person furthering the career has the leeway to define and redefine his time in ways that best suit his/her interests.
6. Innovation: Innovation is a concept seldom spoken of in a job environment. Jobs require you to perform the same rote operations over and over again. Any shift in this systematic chain may lead to major disruptions in the workings of the firm. In a career, on the other hand, innovations are key necessities if one is to take the lead in the fiercely competitive markets of the 21st
7. Skill/Specialization: For a job, it is usually required that one possesses a set of skills backed by academic qualification. One can build a career without as much as a single major certificate. What counts more is how much one is skilled in their specialized career direction.
8. Networking: Working most jobs, one is hardly ever afforded the opportunity to improve one’s network contacts. Because jobs can be very restrictive. A career gives you all the opportunity in the world to network – besides the inherent necessity to do so.
9. Special: Careers are as flexible as life paths. They are opportunities to set astounding landmarks and legacies – imprinting new footprints in the vast sands of history. When one builds a career – one builds a world of stories and posterity will study these and learn.
10. Intermingling of concepts: It is worth noting that some people’s jobs are essentially their careers. And sometimes, a person’s career can be a series of jobs.
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CSN Team.
