The terms “job,” “occupation,” and “career” are often used interchangeably. However, in reality, these terms have quite different meanings, so it is important to distinguish between them.
to work”It’s a job for which you get paid. So it is a means of living and may or may not be long term or lead to anything else by way of work. For this reason, a job can be seen as one big task or a series of tasks that are usually done for money. Contract work and project work often contain “jobs” that need to be done, usually on a fixed-term basis (even if repeated over many months or even years). People tend to talk about their job as “just a job” when it doesn’t give them much long-term career satisfaction.
an “occupation” is a broad category of jobs with similar characteristics. In other words, an occupation is a broad title for what someone does on an ongoing basis. This means that all of your work tends to fit into a professional category that most people recognize. There are many examples in this category, but some might be an accountant, doctor, engineer, nurse, plumber, police officer, scientist, or teacher. As you can see, most occupations are fairly well understood in concept, if not in specific terms, and therefore there is a lot of good information to gather about them (online, for example) as a future career option. Job satisfaction is often higher in an occupational role, but in modern times people are much less likely than before to stay in a single occupation. Today, many of us will change occupations several times in our lives.
Finally, to “career” it is a lifelong journey of building and putting to good use your skills, knowledge and experiences (wherever they are invested). Put another way, a career is a period of long-term employment, usually in a certain area or industry. Thus, a person will typically spend many years in one area or industry, filling what can be a number of different roles. Thus, a career is similar to an occupation, but it is often much broader, as it can involve several linked occupational jobs in the same or similar fields. For example, a doctor may start as a resident in a hospital, become a surgeon, act as a specialist, become a medical director, and finally become a hospital administrator. There are four occupations that are very directly linked but can be considered a career in the field of medicine.
Of course, in a more general sense, there is nothing to stop people from pursuing a fairly varied career where they start as accountants, for example, work their way up to CFO, and then become CEOs. He or she may even end their career on the board of a completely different company in an unfamiliar field – still a great career!
So, in short, a job is a paid job, an occupation is a variety of jobs with similar characteristics, and finally, a career is a lifetime of putting your skills, knowledge, and experiences to good use.
Why does that matter?
If you just want a job, you can be happy to get your money back for the hours you put in and not worry too much about where it might take you in the future. Younger and older employees alike often feel this is completely acceptable, as they want to gain some experience for their resume or have to earn money to fund their activities or interests outside of work. However, as soon as you start thinking about other topics, such as increased job interest, growth, learning and development, and collaboration opportunities, you start thinking in more occupational terms (a field of activity in which you could thrive) and career. . terms (where a good job can lead to another that you can enjoy even more). For this reason, we will examine how to consider the occupations and careers that offer the greatest potential for enjoyment for people. And to do this, we first have to know quite a bit about ourselves.