Job vs. Career

People come to work in the care sector from all kinds of backgrounds and from every part of our community. If you're looking for a new and rewarding challenge, but are not sure what's right for you, take our Career Quiz. It's a fun and easy way to see what type of role would suit you best.

Choosing a career path (or changing one) is, for most of us, a confusing and anxiety-riddled experience. Many will tell you to "follow your passion" or "do what you love," but at times this is not very useful advice.

Perhaps it's time to stop having a job and start having a career!

There are plenty of people who simply don't know what career they want to pursue. But don't panic, by asking yourself some simple questions, you can make the hunt a whole lot clearer. This applies to you whether you're looking for your first proper job, or you're stuck in a job you want to change.

Which part of your life do you pay closest attention to?

Confucius said, “Find a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” It is easy to love your job when that job aligns with your personality. For example, a very social person might love a job as a salesperson, while a shy person might find that job difficult and even disagreeable.

Job hunting, job seeking, or job searching is the act of looking for employment, due to unemployment, underemployment, discontent with a current position, or a desire for a better position. The immediate goal of job seeking is usually to obtain a job interview with an employer which may lead to getting hired. The job hunter or seeker typically first looks for job vacancies or employment opportunities.

Economists use the term "frictional unemployment" to mean unemployment resulting from the time and effort that must be expended before an appropriate job is found. This type of unemployment is always present in the economy. Search theory is the economic theory that studies the optimal decision of how much time and effort to spend searching, and which offers to accept or reject (in the context of a job hunt, or likewise in other contexts like searching for a low price). People in work who use their time off-duty to job search has recently become the norm due to new jobs being mostly temporary and/or part-time (usually with not set hours) or professions becoming freelance, with people hired for individual projects rather than a lifelong job.

Precarious work is non-standard employment that is poorly paid, insecure, unprotected, and cannot support a household. In recent decades there has been a dramatic increase in precarious work due to such factors as globalization, the shift from the manufacturing sector to the service sector, and the spread of information technology. These changes have created a new economy which demands flexibility in the workplace and, as a result, caused the decline of the standard employment relationship and a dramatic increase in precarious work. An important aspect of precarious work is its gendered nature, as women are continuously over-represented in this type of work.

Precarious work is frequently associated with the following types of employment: "part-time employment, self-employment, fixed-term work, temporary work, on-call work, home-based workers, and telecommuting." All of these forms of employment are related in that they depart from the standard employment relationship (full-time, continuous work with one employer).

The standard employment relationship can be defined as full-time, continuous employment where the employee works on their employer’s premises or under the employer's supervision. The central aspects of this relationship include an employment contract of indefinite duration, standardized working hours/weeks and sufficient social benefits. Benefits like pensions, unemployment, and extensive medical coverage protected the standard employee from unacceptable practices and working conditions. The standard employment relationship emerged after World War II with the men who worked in the manufacturing industries and this soon became the norm. On completing their education, most men would go on to work full-time for one employer their entire lives until their retirement at the age of 65. During this time, women would only work temporarily until they got married and had children, at which time they would withdraw from the workforce.

Although the common perception is that self-employment is concentrated in a few service sector industries, like sales people and insurance agents, research by the Small Business Administration has shown that self-employment occurs across a wide segment of the economies. Furthermore, industries that are not commonly associated as a natural fit for self-employment, such as manufacturing, have in fact been shown to have a large proportion of self-employed individuals and home-based businesses.

There are many different ways in which one can be self-employed. Self-employment is a specific form of labor market activity with a particular tax classification spanning hundreds of different occupations and industries. So artists, musicians, accountants, doctors, mechanics, real estate agents, consultants, lawyers, IT software developers, etc. can all be classified as self-employed.

The rapidly evolving online economy touches virtually every aspect of our lives. We now turn to Yelp to choose a restaurant, Airbnb for a weekend getaway, and Uber for a ride. The online economy creates new markets and content where none existed. With low capital requirements, the ability to experiment and adapt rapidly, and well-known successes, the rise of the digital economy provides new opportunities and distinctive management challenges for entrepreneurs and traditional businesses alike.

In 2017, retail e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to 2.3 trillion US dollars and e-retail revenues are projected to grow to 4.88 trillion US dollars in 2021. Online shopping is one of the most popular online activities but the usage varies by region - in 2016, an estimated 19 percent of all retail sales in China occurred via internet but in Japan the share was only 6.7 percent. Desktop PCs are still the most popular device for placing online shopping orders while mobile smartphones, are catching up.

Many self-employed individuals have employees who work for them as in the case of small business owners. One ways to differentiate self-employment is by industry-sector. So, one can be self-employed in manufacturing, retail trade, professional services, personal services, or finance. While all forms of self-employment offer independence and autonomy for self-employed individuals, the rewards and income generation vary dramatically by industry.

Food for thought!