Portfolio Career

What does it mean to manage a career in a portfolio way?

On theh 22nd of February I  assisted to a webinar called ” Career breaktrhrough telesummit”.3days where different speakers talked about career management and entrepreneurship. I used the concept of portfolio career in my dissertation of Career Development, I already knew people who were working on that way at that time.

Julia Barnickle explains how she is now working in a portfolio career. After working during long time in the IT corporate world as a Programmer Business Analyst, Trainer, Team Manager, she was made redundant. Later on Julia decided to retrain and worked in a variety of roles: web designer, ioga teacher, coach …However people told Julia she had to work in a specific area, she couldn´t work in different things at the same time. Was that true? Julia discovered that there are  creative people, what we call ” scanner”. This people have many interests and there is not just one thing they want to focus on. It is difficult for them to adapt to a traditional corporate world.

A portfolio career is having different experiences and skills that allow you to generate income and having work variety. ” It doesn´t mather how succesful you are in your career, nobody can guarantee you a work for  your lifetime”. Benefits of a portfolio career are diverse:

You don´t put all your effort in one direction, you can work for yourself, you learn and control your time and the insecurity of being self-employed is compensated by the capacity  of developing yourself and working in  a diversity of areas. Julia describes the difficult situation and challenges that an entrepreneur need to overcome. She always recommend to have someone by your side that can guide you; a friend or a person who gives you support as a professional. Julia talked about having a  ” buddy” and highlighted the need of  searching for someone who can help you and has gone through the same.

For more information on this matter or understanding what does it mean to be a scanner you can check her website on  http://juliabarnickle.com