Your Lifelong Journey
What is the difference between a career and a job?
Your career is a combination of education, training and experience related to a specific occupation. It includes past jobs in that same field or career cluster. A job is what you do to earn a paycheck and gain new skills.
The real difference between a job and a career is your attitude. People who want a career are thinking about their long-term goals and what they can do now to make those goals happen.
If life were a video game, a job would be just one level. Having a career means that you are committed to playing the game to get better over time and advance to higher levels.
For example, maybe your dream is to work as a director of marketing for a professional sports team. Do you think you'll get that job right out of high school? Doubtful.
Think of your journey as climbing a ladder — the corporate ladder. You might start by volunteering as an usher at the stadium. During college, you could work part time in the ticket office. You might work as someone's assistant after graduation and, from there, as a sales or promotions associate. Maybe you'll be promoted to marketing manager and, finally, work your way up the ladder to being the director of marketing.
Every opportunity at the bottom of the ladder made it possible for you to gain the skills and experience needed to move to the next step.
Remember that each occupation has a different path or ladder. And most entry-level jobs can lead to more than one type of upper-level job.
Often job seekers think about earning the big paychecks or having the job duties that come with higher-level positions. They don't realize it might take a few years to get to that level.
Entry-level job seekers need to remember that lower-level jobs might pay less and have job duties that might not seem important, but they can lead to great opportunities.
Just remember — the choices you make now will impact your future. Your extracurricular activities, volunteer work and part-time jobs are all a part of your lifelong career journey.
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