A NY investor and wife of a NY venture capitalist that I read regularly, Joann Wilson, recently said that she thought “people don’t have careers anymore. What they do to start, will not be what they do in the end.”
As the leading Healthcare IT Career blog and the leading Healthcare IT job board, I found this comment really interesting. We don’t have to dig out the statistics to know that the idea of a career being getting hired by a company and working for them for the rest of your life. That type of career is definitely gone. Sure, there might be a few exceptions, but they are definitely the exception whereas it use to be the norm.
I’m not sure all the dynamics that changed our culture of career movement, but we’re seeing it across all industries including healthcare IT. While this job shift is happening, does that mean that you no longer have a career?
I’d argue that you can still have a career even if your career spans multiple companies. Now, instead of spending your career at Xerox, you might have a career in healthcare IT. In fact, you might go even broader than that and say that you have a career in marketing.
I don’t think that this shift is a bad thing. Plus, it’s still just as much a career and has many similar characteristics to a career with just one company. While in the past, your company became your support network, in this new environment, your specialties community becomes your family.
It turns out that this is a really powerful concept. Each of these various specialties start to form into a wonderfully connected community. I’ve seen this first hand as I’ve organized the Health IT Marketing and PR Conference. The health IT marketing and PR Professionals that attend the event really felt like they finally found a home where they feel comfortable. Now we’re starting to see some in the community leave their previous positions and move to new ones. When they do this, they still retain that same family wherever they go because their career isn’t based on a company, but is based on the type of work they do.
The healthcare IT community is this way as well. I’m always amazed to see how many EHR consultants move from one company, to another company, and then back to the original company. It’s the new normal. All in all, I think it’s a great thing that the definition of career has expanded to more than just your time at one company. What do you think?
I agree wholeheartedly that the definition of career has expanded to more than just your time at one company. I define a career as the sum of one’s body of work and experience. A career may very well span different industries and different roles. Changes in one’s career may be internally driven (I’m tired of doing X and would like to do Y) or externally driven (there is no longer a need for skill set X, so to stay employed, I need skill set Y).
I also would like to offer this thought: whether you are a consultant, contract worker, or direct hire, you still are really working for Yourself Inc. Just like any business, Yourself Inc. must stay viable and profitable over time. When markets change, Yourself Inc. has to adjust products and services (e.g. your skill sets, experience, and industry knowledge) to stay competitive. Your customers (potential employers) are always looking for cheaper prices to lower their costs. To keep your customers – i.e. to stay employed, you must make sure that the value you provide is worth your cost.
Looking at a career this way allows one to see change as opportunity. For example,the movement of software and services to the cloud, or growth of mobile technology, or the change from fee-for-service to pay for performance are all opportunities for Yourself Inc. to develop and deliver new products and services. Of course it takes work to develop these new products and services – i.e. to learn the skills and knowledge to operate in these areas, but the reward in terms of compensation and career satisfaction can be well worth it.
Great response. I think it’s a really interesting analogy to think of Yourself Inc as a company. Thanks for sharing.