There is a name for it: Portfolio Careers

Recently, my career advisor from grad school, Terry Del Percio, posted a very interesting article entitled, Portfolio Careers: A Career of Multiple Part-Time Jobs (can be found at www.quintcareers.com/portfolio_careers.html).  Such an interesting descriptor I thought because I immediately thought of a stock portfolio and the advice - diversify, diversify, diversify. The article opens by posing several questions, "Is it the career of the future or a passing fad? Will workers and employers in the U.S. embrace the concept as strongly as in Europe? Is it right for you?"

According to the article, "Portfolio careers are usually built around a collection of skills and interests, though the only consistent theme is one of career self-management. With a portfolio career you no longer have one job, one employer, but multiple jobs and employers within one or more professions." Certainly in these economic times, it would seem that a portfolio career could emerge naturally. Those of us in job seeker mode find that we have to be creative to attain gainful employment which sometimes means leveraging our skills on a consulting or part-time basis. Companies are streamlining their budgets and expenses and are sometimes much more open to paying a flat fee or an agreed upon rate that is not accompanied by the responsibility of providing benefits and other types of insurance required by labor law for each person on staff.

Interestingly, this was all predicted by Charles Handy in the early 1990s, according to Quintessential Careers. He really felt that we would be more in control of our careers by working multiple small jobs as opposed to one big job. I realized that having multiple jobs was attractive to me although I wouldn't classify them as "part-time jobs." Given my concentration of efforts, it also made sense to launch my own business, Valentine Consulting of South Florida, LLC. However, it still seems to me to fall under the same philosophy of the portfolio career.

I personally enjoy working with multiple companies and clients. It increases my knowledge base a great deal and it keeps things much more interesting. It also makes it easier to remain current with many of the advances and developments in the nation. Each client has a somewhat different story and somewhat different need so as I delve into each scenario, I attain new nuggets of information. On the other side of the coin, I have to be proactive about building my brand to continue expanding my network. Most people in that "one big job" don't have to worry about that. I find, however, that the building my brand process yet again helps me to increase my knowledge base and try new things that I can then share with my clients. Is this a fad for me? I doubt it because as I look back on my resume, I realize that I truly enjoyed working for smaller organizations because it gave me the opportunity to wear multiple hats and experience diversity in my assignments. Now I have expanded to experiencing diversity in my clients and projects.