What is a Portfolio Career?

If you are thinking of changing career and having difficulty deciding what to do, a portfolio could be the ideal option for you. After all, in reality it is unlikely that you will find all the ingredients of your dream job in one place. If you look back over your career history, including student days as well as work experience, and make a list of everything you enjoyed doing, you'll probably come up with an interesting combination of skills and activities. The trouble is, that jobs aren't created to fit people - people are expected to squeeze into jobs. This works if the majority of tasks you're expected to complete is in alignment with your preferred skills set. However, this is not the case for many people if you really want to live the life you love, finding a career that fits is crucial. So if you're struggling to find the perfect career, it might be time to consider looking beyond specific job titles and creating a portfolio career.

The term was first used by Charles Handy to describe a pattern of work which has emerged as a result of the death of the job for life. Having a portfolio simply means that you earn your living in a combination of jobs. So you may need some careers advice to help you sort out your ideas. A careers advisor will be able to help you assess the how practical your portfolio is and enable you to plan for any extra study you may need to undertake.

You could end up with a mixture of employment and self-employment. For many people, this is a frightening development, but it doesn't need to be. Your parents or grandparents - depending on how old you are - expected to find a job and stay in it for their entire working life, probably moving up the career ladder - unless they chose to move to another post.

Nowadays, things are very different, with short-term contracts, an increase in temporary positions and downsizing, outsourcing and all sorts of cost-cutting measures. So, very few professions now offer the security of a job for life.

There are two ways of looking at this: it can be seen as a problem, or an opportunity. It's a problem if you expect to find job security, a pension and job satisfaction all in one place and it could also be a problem if you don't like change.

However, the end of the job for life can be seen in a very different light; it can be seen as an opportunity to expand your horizons, develop new skills and get a great deal more job satisfaction than you currently enjoy.

A portfolio career needs to be carefully planned and that plan should be implemented gradually, as it is difficult to tell in advance if a particular combination of jobs will work. It is important to avoid simply having two part-time jobs which involve long hours, extra travel time and don't give you the chance to use your skills.

Spend some time writing down all the activities, skills and experience that you want to be part of your working life, then look at ways in which these might form part of a portfolio. For example, you might want to use some skills related to your present job, teach a hobby at evening class or run workshops in personal development.

Next, do some research to find out how you might develop each idea. Could you set up a small business or take some courses which would enable you to work in a new field?

Trying to establish yourself in several fields can feel overwhelming. So start with one idea. Let's say you've been working as a book-keeper for various employers for a number of years, but are about to be made redundant . You enjoy the work, but you make jewelry as a hobby and would like to spend more time on that. You also write short stories and would love to get something published.

The first step is to do some research to check that all of your ideas are marketable. No matter how hard you work or how good your end product, it will be very difficult to earn a living if there isn't a demand for what you are selling.

In this example, it makes sense to start with book-keeping. It's something you know about and have been doing for a living. Let's assume that you have some savings and a redundancy payment which will keep you afloat for a few months. You could advertise locally for clients, targeting small businesses and sole traders who can't afford to take someone on full-time, but need help for half a day or a day a week. You know what is required of you and so, once you've found your first client, it is mainly a case of getting used to doing this work on a freelance basis. You'll need to check on local regulations regarding self-employment and make sure you have all the equipment you need.

If you are nervous about spending all your savings, you could get occasional temporary jobs to tide you over and then use evenings for freelance work. Eventually, you have enough clients to pay the bills and then you can think about how to move forward with the jewelry business. You could consider setting up a market stall, building a website or searching online to find other ways to distribute your work. It'll take a while to sort out the best way forward and then some time to become established.

Once you've reached the point where both businesses are running smoothly and bringing in a regular income, you can think about taking a writing course, submitting work to publishers or entering competitions.

Of course, there will be lots of variables involved and plenty of ups and downs along the way. One idea may take off unexpectedly and you may decide to focus primarily in that area, cutting back in the others. But if you do your research and focus on one area at a time, you will set up several streams of income and since in this example, you are self-employed, you are in control of what you do and when you do it. And you'll have much more job satisfaction than when you worked full-time as you now have so much more variety.

And with the death of the "job for life," having several ways of earning a living will be extremely beneficial. If one source of income dries up, you have two or three others to fall back on. These can then be expanded or, since you are used to being flexible, you could view this as an opportunity to start something new again.