We talk a lot about careers, jobs. and work – but what do these words actually mean? Are they really all just different words for the same thing, or are there subtle differences?
Well, they actually do all mean different things. And most importantly, knowing the differences can not only help you plan out your future, but also re-think what success in our working lives means.
What is a career?
“Career” is a word we use to describe the jobs and work we do throughout our lives. It comes from an old word for chariot, and can also be used to describe forward movement (as in, the car careered off the road).
In the past, the only people who had a career were the lucky people who could choose what they did, such as men who worked in management. Most careers moved forward in a pretty predictable way – as long as you turned up and did your job, you could expect to eventually be promoted.
Other people (like women, minorities, factory workers, and those with less money) were unlikely to have a “career” – instead they would have “jobs”, which didn’t have clear paths for advancement.
Today, we know that straightforward careers are actually the exception rather than the norm. The main reason people could have them in the past is because they relied on others in their lives to do everything else (like raise kids, clean the house, cook meals, and plan holidays).
Essentially, your career is a combination of the jobs and work you do over your lifetime. And it’s unlikely to look like a straight line – there will be times when you make great leaps forward, but there will also be times when you seem to stand still, or even go backwards. But this is all totally normal!
If you move into another field entirely then you may feel that you have ended one career and started another – we call this a “career change”.
What’s a job?
A “job” is a much more static than a career: it’s a set of tasks that you perform on a regular basis in return for a set benefit (typically pay).
To move forward in your career, you may be promoted from one job to another or find a job somewhere else – the job itself is static, while you move around.
As an example, you may have a career in nursing, but your current job is a ward nurse in the respiratory unit of your local hospital. In the future, you could move into a job as a nursing unit manager, or a job as a research nurse. Your career will still be in nursing, but your job will change.
So, what’s work then?
We use the word “work” to refer to something that we need to do. This means it’s an activity that serves a purpose – it isn’t just something you want to do (but you can still enjoy it, of course).
Your job is a form of work – most of us do it because we need the money to fund the rest of our lives. If you weren’t paid, then you probably wouldn’t turn up.
But work isn’t just something you do in return for money. In fact, there are lots of other things that count as work that won’t earn you a cent. This is typically called “unpaid work”, and includes things like caring for family members, cleaning and maintaining your living space and clothes, managing your professional networks, and even growing your own food.
Just because something doesn’t have a monetary value doesn’t mean it’s valueless – all of these things are important in different ways, and are often things we couldn’t survive without. It’s simply easier to track and measure paid work, so that’s what most people (including the government) focus on.
Why is this important?
How you see your work, job, and career can have a big impact on how successful you feel.
For example, parents who have to take time out of their jobs to care for their children may feel less successful than their peers who can work full-time without distractions, but they only feel this way because they don’t count all their unpaid caring work as ‘work’.
We know that earning lots of money or climbing the corporate ladder doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness, so re-framing what you consider to be “success” can help when thinking about your future career.
The world of work is always changing, and those shiny, linear careers we spoke about earlier have largely disappeared. So if you can reset your thinking before you’ve even started your journey, you’ll be more prepared for the ups and downs when they appear.
Find out more
Looking for more resources on careers, jobs, and work? You can read heaps of other blogs and find inspiration on our website.
