Job vs Career
Working for money or working for passion, which of the two is desirable to you? If you can not sense a polarity between the two, you would be surprised to know how these terms, usually used interchangeably, are actually very different from each other.
‘Job’ and ‘career’, both these terms seem so close to each other, but actually, they are poles apart. Considering them as synonyms for each other would be like calling the ocean a puddle of water.
Job is the work that a person does primarily to earn a living. It can be for both, short-term or long-term, paying the salaries as hourly wages or a fixed-amount paycheck for as long as you work for that particular job. Often, the job a person is currently in, may not be aligned with their long-term professional goal, but just to get a paycheck for some work they did, but might not want to excel in. A job doesn’t require expertise in a certain domain, but a handful of general skills help you get one that can support you for the time being.
Alternatively, a career is something that you aspire to build for a long term for your professional life. Initially, a career is not defined by the money you earn but the experience and exposure it gives you. A fruitful career is built by expertise and an in-depth knowledge in a certain field. A career and a dream to build it are borne and achieved only by passion. In a way, you can call a job a subset of career, provided you find one that suits your career. Various jobs can lead you to the career you long for, but often, there aren’t several careers for a single person.
There are several factors which will help to draw a comparison between a job and a career better, which are as follows:
- Growth:
Having a career helps us in growing inside-out. Career instigates the will to work and requires a good amount of learning in your respective field. So you learn a lot more than any job would teach you. Jobs do help to learn new stuff but it may or may not align with your career goals. So, in all, career helps in developing interpersonal along with intra-personal skills.
2. Stability:
Before starting to look for an employee, every organization demands for stability. No one would want an employee who isn’t stable and whose personal values do not align with those of the company. A career creates a path to stability because it is not a short term goal. With the mindset of working toward a certain dream, you can be passionate and immovable in your desire to learn and grow.
3. Risk-taking:
Generally, a job is less risky compared to a career, because a career requires extra and constant efforts with the ever changing world. Demands of people are always improvising and so your effort toward your career should keep changing. Instead, in the case of jobs, it is generally a constant-pay and regular work which doesn’t prosper undertaking risks quite often, so one can sit back and relax knowing that one will anyhow complete the task at hand, which is all there to be done.
4. Income and Education:
These points are something worth looking at, while talking about job vs career. Jobs are generally hourly-wages based or for a short duration, and also don’t necessitate a lot of expertise to begin with, so they are also less-paying. Career requires wholesome attention, high-quality education with a lot of dedication, so the incomes naturally increase in comparison to jobs. And not only salary, a successful career also provides you with various incentives, awards, pensions and multiple bonuses.
5. A journey:
Whereas a job can be called a chapter in someone’s life, a career is the entire journey. Having a career is satiating and fulfilling, because it takes our entire determination to achieve a single goal, unlike the short term bursts of several jobs to earn money. Working for a career gives us more satisfaction than working at a job because a career seems something personal to people, a feat that they have achieved by their own constant and quality input.
Whenever you start taking responsibility of any task at hand, you learn to grow and that is the most fundamental thing which distinguishes between a career and a job. Searching for part time jobs every now and then drains a lot of energy, is time consuming and is demoralizing for people. But, finding the appropriate career embarks the tenure of success in something you are passionate about. While talking majorly about career, don’t get discouraged if you haven’t figured out your interests yet. It is never late to discover your passion or in fact, multiple passions. Try experimenting various things in the beginning and try locating where do you find yourself most fulfilled. There is never an easy road to building a career and succeeding in that. It is also alright if your career is the road not chosen by many, construct your own new ways. And until you find your career path, keep working in jobs to earn and live for a while.
