What are the main differences between a career and a job?
Most people aspire to have work either as a job or a career but not everyone knows the main difference between a job and a career.
Do you want to know the main difference between a job and a career?
This article will point out the key differences between a job and a career.
What is a job?
Definition: The Merriam-Webster defines the word job as “the work that a person does regularly in order to earn money”. [1].
In other word, a job is a paid for piece of work or a task. It could be on hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, annually, or periodically arrangements.
What is a career?
Simply put a career can be defined as an occupation that has to do with the larger part of someone’s life with opportunities to progress.
It is a lifelong profession.
University of Dubuque defines a career this way, “the sum total of decisions that direct your educational, social, economic, political, and spiritual endeavors and reflect your unique personality characteristics and basic life values.” [2]
What are the 3 main differences between a career and a job?
| Key Points | Job | Career |
| Overview | A job is a task you do for money | A career not only gives you money but also privilege to fulfill your lifelong ambition |
| Duration | It may be for a while and may not be progressive. Part-time or short-term position | It is a lifelong profession. Long term |
| Purpose | A job only gives you money and may not offer a pathway to career growth and development. | A career is more than a paycheck. It is a lifelong profession that provides a pathway to growth and advancement [3] |
Comparing a job and a career therefore it is too crystal clear that a career is a long time or a lifelong profession that gives someone a constant means of livelihood and can enable the actualization of his ambition progressively.
Whereas a job essentially is a task that is engaged in by an individual for a pay and as a means of livelihood for a period.
How does today’s digital world affect your job and career?
The technological age we are in now poses its own peculiar challenges.
In today’s world it is becoming clearer that the era of being a jobber is becoming unpopular as the human race is rapidly moving its focus on the use of robotics and artificial intelligence thereby reducing its reliance on labor and the old fashion subjective methods of doing things.
How to Build a Meaningful Career
COLLEGE CURRICULAR
First it is high time the Colleges especially in Africa woke up and take these challenges head on.
They should realize that gone are those days when College graduates are trained on basic fundamental of picking jobs like picking apples in the grocery straight from college.
Those jobs have gone with the increasing downturn of the global economy and the continuous election of clueless political leaders as the navigators of their state crafts.
They should as a matter of absolute necessity focus their curriculum therefore on building future professionals who can be self-employed and can create windows of opportunity for wealth creation for themselves and others rather than looking for the very few blue-collar jobs which are already been taken over by robots and sophisticated computers.
INDIVIDUAL DECISIONS.
Individuals looking for employment or ways to earn money online should as a matter of importance and strategy seek jobs through Career Employment Consultants who can fix them on jobs which can provide them on and off the job training and manpower development programs which can invariably make them masters of their chosen occupations.
ONLINE COURSES AND COLLEGE DISTANCE LEARNING PROGRAMS
This is another unique opportunity to becoming professionals and to step up from being a worker to positions of prominence and recognition as careerists.
Suffice it to submit that to remain recognized and vibrant careerists however involves the combination of relevant educational qualifications and adequate skills in a particular occupation or calling.
CONCLUSION
In a summary a career can be used as a yardstick to rate someone’s achievements and professional pedigrees.
Any occupation one determines to take on long term basis with relevant skills and prerequisite qualifications is a career.
For instance, a guy who works temporarily in a supermarket to earn a living takes it as a job.
Whereas another who goes there for the purpose of learning the rudiments of the trade and decides to establish his own turns his initial engagement into a career.
What practical steps are you taking now to make sure you turn your job into a career? Think about it!
References:
[1]. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/job
[2].https://dbq.edu/CampusLife/OfficeofStudentLife/VocationalServices/WhatisaCareer
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