Cool Careers: An Introduction
What is the difference between a "job" and a "career"?
A job is the individual position that you're holding at a given time. A career is the broad trajectory. A career is what you're planning to do. I might have an entry level job in the career now, but I plan to ascend. The job is a specific job that you're doing now and the career is the larger path.
What is a "calling"?
Well, religious people believe in the notion of a "calling,"particularly in Christinaity, which says that you were meant to do something - that god intended it. It's something that is believed by even some non-religious people, but I think it's a very misleading term because it implies that for almost everybody there is the right calling if they only search far enough. I deeply believe that that's true for only about five percent of people. Ninety-five percent of people will find that there's many careers that they can be equally happy and successful in. So I warn viewers against thinking there is this calling out there for you. If by the time you're twenty or thirty you havn't found your calling yet the odds are pretty good that there are many different careers that would be appropriate; there is no one call.
Should I search for a job, a career or a calling?
Whether you search for a job, a career or a calling depends on your time in life. There are times, for example when you've finished college, when you're burned-out, you're sick of doing anything relating to working, and you just want to make a few bucks so you can take your girlfriend or boyfriend out of a date. At this time, sure, just get a job. Sometimes you want something that's just going to be low-maintainance, like driving a cab. Everybody's going to pay to be a waiter, that sort of thing. There is definitely another time in your career when you want to build something that you're going to feel prouder of, where you feel you're going to make a bigger difference. It's then that you're going to start thinking about a career and what I call a launch pad job: your first job in that career. This could be something that in itself might still be low-level, but you're going have a chance to learn a lot from being around smart people who are experiencing the field. You can make that working connection and move up. Your career is a series of jobs that plans that ascendancy.
