In organizations, most people have jobs, few have careers. People often confuse having a job with having a career. This should not be a surprise given that most institutions, including our education institutions, seldom clearly distinguish between the two.
Most people are taught to see a career as following a career path by becoming a part of a job family that has a series of levels; where they go on a quest for promotions and raises. As an example, those who work in engineering are typically part of a job family where they can advance from junior engineer, to engineer, to senior engineer, to project engineer, and finally to staff engineer as the pinnacle of their engineering endeavor. Yet at every level, it’s usually just another job. The same can be said for job families in accounting, sales, manufacturing, fund raising and more.
A career on the other hand, accrues to those whose focus is on contributing to their organizations mission. These are the people whose actions are based on moving their organization to being a leader in their field. They go beyond the effort that is needed to fulfill their job description.
So if we want to distinguish between having a job and having a career, we can say that a career is about making contributions that exceed expectations and a job is about working to satisfy job requirements. That is not to say that if you have a career, you don‘t have to do what your told to do or work to satisfy your job requirements. It is more to say that if you have a career, you are acting out of choice and you are choosing to contribute to your organizations mission.
One can easily become passionate about a career because it is easy to be passionate about something we choose to do. Being stuck in a job where our goal is to satisfy job requirements, instead of contributing to our organizations mission, often becomes tedious and frustrating.
When we are interested in having a career we can be proud of; a career that we can be passionate about; then our success will be highly dependent on how we choose to identify with our role. It’s not important if we are top management or just beginning as an entry level employee. Regardless of our role, if our goal is to contribute to our organizations mission,we have a career and it is easy to be passionate about what we are doing.
When we are passionate about what we are doing; instead of simply working to satisfy our job requirements, our role can be rewarding, whatever it may be. It’s important to recognize that when we are passionate about what we are doing, and we’re enjoying what we are doing, then we will stand out from the crowd and be recognized as a valuable contributor no matter what our role is.
