A career doesn’t have to be a detailed plan or focused path. It is a series of jobs not necessarily connected. You receive remuneration in return for your time and skills. You don’t have to work on the job title and description so that it perfectly matches what you are doing so that your CV and LinkedIn profile look good. Essentially someone needs someone else with a particular set of skills and amount of experience to work for them and are willing to pay an amount that you both negotiate. The role is then executed under a contract or agreement of some form with taxes and insurances paid in the process.
Simple?
Somehow we have made it more complex than it should be. Recruitment agents, headhunters, job boards, CV profiling, keywords, AI matching, career consultants. Sigh. All wanting their cut for services rendered.
There are career days, career planners, and career mentors. Thinking of changing careers to something completely different? There are role transition experts, CV tailoring to highlight your transferable skills, career conferences and seminars, and industry experts to tempt you to work in their field.
How’s your career looking so far? You can rewrite history adding skills and tools you have encountered but not used, connect to people you met over a coffee and biscuit for a minute’s chat five years ago on the off-chance their connections may be of use. You can take free or paid online courses to enhance your skills and profile. They do come with shiny badges and rarely any substance. How about some accreditation from a company you’ve never even heard of? No one will check.
You could make a career out of making a career. Or you could just enjoy what you do and look for fun jobs without caring too much about how your ladder or path looks. But if you do there’s someone for that too.