I’m 22 and Have Three Careers — Here’s Why
If this quote sounds like a bit of you, then you’ve landed yourself the right article. I first heard the term “parallel career” from my dad when I was quite young. These were the kind of pep talks we got as kids — sports wasn’t a big thing in our family. He explained that you should have a back up to you normal career and, all things going well, a way to guaranteeing your retirement by 40. Dad was a ship captain for most of his working life and his parallel career was owning and leasing out commercial properties. This meant he has been able to provide a lot of opportunities for his four kids and a very comfortable retirement (albeit later than expected — age 60).
Because of dad’s advice, it is no surprise that each one of his four kids has a parallel career of their own. I think this is becoming an increasingly popular trend, especially among millennials. We are the generation that looks for more than a good remuneration package in our work. We look for meaning, self-actualization, free food, and bean bags (according to Simon Sinek). Parallel careers are a pathway towards these aspirations.
Currently, I work full time as a frontline police officer, I am studying part-time at university to get my masters in psychology, and have recently started freelance writing. Having three parallel careers might seem like a cliché millennial brag, but in the following article, I will tell you why everyone in their 20s should have two careers, for reasons beyond mere bragging rights.
Side Hustle or Parallel Career
I think it’s useful to make a distinction between this article strictly relates to the later. From what I can tell, a side hustle is a (usually simple) job that provides a reliable secondary income which is used to achieve some financial goal like saving for a holiday, paying off debt quicker, or affording a new fancy piece of tech.
When discussing parallel careers, I am talking about something that you treat like a full-time career and is intrinsically interesting and meaningful. Parallel careers are more than a secondary income, they are about developing oneself and enhancing one’s capabilities. Establishing another career requires that you learn new skills, make new connections, and work towards more meaningful goals.
What follows, are the 9 reasons that I think everyone should develop a parallel career. These reasons are based on what I have learned in the last couple of years. Although I am no expert on career advice, I think I have found a few diamonds of wisdom in balancing three careers.
1. Cultivate New Career Capital
A parallel career provides a platform for you to acquire skills, knowledge, and experience that can be applied to both your current and future careers. This collection of new abilities is generally termed career capital, and the more of it you accumulate, the more valuable you are to your current employer and future employers. Increasing career capital through a parallel career means developing skills you already have a foundation in, or starting from scratch and learning from the beginning.
For me, becoming a freelance writer meant I had to enter a whole new world. I had to carefully map it out this I could find a path towards succeeding in it. One key skill I had to learn was how to market myself. This isn’t required in policing because there is always crime to solve. Marketing myself meant I had to learn how to talk about myself (ugh), how to talk myself up (double ugh), how to apply for jobs, and how to develop a reliable writing process. This is the kind of career capital I wouldn’t have otherwise developed and are skills I will use in future jobs.
Contrast this to my psychology career which involved me returning to university and refining the skills I was introduced to at undergrad. Fortunately, there was a lot of crossover between the skills I learned at university (researching, writing, and editing) and the skills required to be a successful freelance nonfiction writer which makes them complementary pursuits.
2. Establish a Secondary Source of Income
A successful parallel career provides another means of making money. Although I do not think this is the most important reason for starting, I think it is a great incentive for pursuing another career. I can’t deny that the prospect of making money from freelance writing has made me continue with it. In fact, I think it is one of the most motivating factors for increasing the quality of my work and developing new skills.
A misconception that everyone should be aware of is that these parallel careers create an income stream straight away. A lawyer will study for 4 years before they begin to earn a decent salary. A clinical psychologist will study for 7 years (full time). My career as a psychologist is still at the studying stage and I will not earn anything from it for several years. In my opinion, to become a high performer, you need to treat this study phase as part of your career and as if you are getting paid. The amount of attention you pay during this time will affect your performance ability and therefore your future earning potential.
For people who choose to prepare for their next career while still enjoying their current career (like I have), it is useful to think of time spent studying as deferred wages. You won’t get paid for your time studying until you start working in that field but hopefully, your salary will be significant enough to justify that time spent studying.
3. Negotiate From a Position of Strength
Developing a parallel career puts you in a stronger position in your current job. Being able to leave your current job at any point and turn to your parallel career full time puts you in a powerful position with your employer, especially if you are negotiating for more pay or a promotion.
The motivation for initiating another career will vary between people. It could be to increase their career earnings, to do work that more closely aligns with their values, or to do something more interesting or challenging. Whatever the case is, developing a parallel career will give you a way out when you finally decide to leave your job.
My dad describes a parallel career as a “back up”. I like this idea because sometimes there are things you can’t plan for that makes your current career no longer viable. The organization might change significantly in a way that you don’t agree with, you might be made redundant due to an economic recession or organizational restructure, or you might develop a health problem that prevents you from doing your job. This final point is one I have had to consider as a police officer. If I can’t pass my medical and fitness test, I will have to find another job, possibly one outside the police.
4. Become an Insanely Productive Worker
Having parallel careers forces you to become a productivity machine. I often challenge myself to see how much work I can get done in a certain period of time and the results often surprise me. Parkinson’s law dictates that:
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”
Productivity is a meta-skill I have developed as a result of balancing three careers and is a good reason others should do the same. The influence of Cal Newport and Scott Young has been particularly important for allowing me to increase my productivity. Concepts such as Deepwork and Digital Minialism have completely changed my lifestyle and how I approach work. Increasing my productivity has taught me things about time management and focus that I will take into other parts of my life going forward — more career capital.
5. Keep Up With The Changing Workplace
Due to constant advancements in technology, the world of work is forever changing. Jobs that exist today might not even be around in 20 years. It is undeniable that the demand for skills is shifting and if you don’t keep up, you might find yourself without a job.
I am fortunate that two of my career choices (policing and psychology) are likely going to be in demand for a while yet (although AI might one day replace us — thanks Robocop). For others though, some industries are changing so fast that to keep up and stay employed, requires you to upskill and be prepared for what the industry is going to look like next. Choosing a parallel career carefully involves thinking about what jobs are going to be in demand next and beginning the process of acquiring skills to work in that area.
6. Expect Your Interests to Change
The year I spent recruiting for the police was one of the most challenging but exciting. It took me 12 months to go through the recruitment process and during that time not a day passed that I didn’t think about how great things were finally going to be once I hit the street as a cop. I would sit in classes at uni and daydream about all the far more exciting things I would be doing once I got in. I thought it was going to be the best job ever and I would do it for my whole life.
Don’t get me wrong, policing is without a doubt the best job I’ve ever had. It certainly beats doing dishes in a café or talking to disgruntled customers on the phone in a call center (never again). But something I didn’t anticipate was how significantly my interests would change. Having spent a bit of time in the job now, I realize that chasing cars and locking up criminals is a huge rush but it’s not the most important thing to me. I have started to develop more interest in the societal issues that contribute to the crime I was dealing with. Now I’m more interested in addressing these issues rather than being the ambulance waiting at the bottom of the cliff.
Allowing for this change in interest is another function of a parallel career. My psychology studies have provided a platform for exploring other things I’m interested in. I plan to one day shift my focus completely towards psychology and because I have already made a start on it, I will be more prepared when that day comes around. It was naïve for me to think that doing the same job would satisfy me forever. People change their jobs on average every 5 years a parallel career allows for a smoother transition between those jobs.
7. Engage Your Creative Side
One tool I use to navigate my way through life is a personality inventory I took around two years ago. This seems to help me with my decision making, especially big decisions about what I spend my time doing and what careers I choose to pursue.
One dimension on the personality scale is called Openness to Experience. This is the primary dimension of creativity, artistic interest, and intelligence. I score moderately low on it (34th percentile) suggesting that my interest in creative output is relatively low.
Despite this finding, I am using my parallel career as a freelance writer to explore my creative abilities and to test the accuracy of the personality test. As expected, fictional writing bores the shit out of me (because I score low on artistic interest) but writing about concepts and theories really interests me (because I score a lot higher on intellectual curiosity). Therefore, freelancing gives me an outlet to explore intellectual ideas through researching and writing about them (and make a small amount of money from it).
Contrary to my personality, some people will score really high in openness and need an outlet like this to survive. This is especially true for people who are very creative but are constrained because they have found work in analytical jobs. Being able to engage in a creative outlet could be just what they need to engage their interests and open their minds to alternative and more fitting types of work. A parallel career offers a platform to explore this.
8. Expand Your Circle of Contacts
My police roster makes attending classes at uni almost impossible. Fortunately for people like me, my university holds week-long “block courses” each semester for each paper. These courses are a great opportunity to take off my police hat and act like a student again. I’m not talking about week-long binge drinking sessions (never ever again). I am talking about having the freedom to sit in a classroom all day and discuss new ideas. It’s also a great opportunity to make connections with people who have similar interests to me.
I have taken this a step further by involving myself in the local psychologist’s association, which allows for student members. This is another opportunity to make connections with future psychologists and will set me up even more when I transition into that career fulltime. A parallel career does not just get you developing the necessary skills for a career change, it gets you established in the circle of people who can help you progress through that career.
9. Relearn the Value of Money
Starting out as a freelance writer has retaught me the value of money. I started out by writing articles for Medium and got paid through their partner program. I earned $2.40 in my first month and $10.60 in my second. It didn’t take much calculating to realize my hourly rate was dismal. The thing I really noticed, however, was when I bought a $4 coffee, I really felt the cost of it. The amount of researching, writing, and editing I had to do to afford that coffee made me rethink my spending and I have since become a lot more conservative with my spending.
My hope is that this article has demonstrated the positive impacts a parallel career has had on my life. This kind of journey is both exciting and challenging, but as the saying goes, nothing worth having ever comes easy. To help you on your own journey, below I have listed a couple of resources that I have found useful. I am considering writing a complete guide about how to start your parallel career and make it fit around your current work. Please click the link below to vote on whether this is something you’d be interested in reading. Good luck! 😊 Mike
Please vote → https://bit.ly/33RTTmw
References
https://80000hours.org/ — The ultimate guide to career planning
https://www.understandmyself.com/ — Personality assessment (Worth every penny of the $9.95 it costs)
https://www.scotthyoung.com/ — One of the two best blogs on career and learning
https://www.calnewport.com/ — The other of the two best blogs, I’ll let you decide on the order
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hER0Qp6QJNU — Simon Sinek on Millenials in the workplace
https://www.ted.com/talks/meg_jay_why_30_is_not_the_new_20?language=en — Meg Jay TED Talk (mandatory watch for all under-30 year olds)
