When I talk about careers, I’m talking about the conventional way of looking at a “career”. Just to be clear, let’s explore this in a little detail. To many people, a career means choosing a path (either through luck, planning, default or other), that will last until that dim distant date called retirement. Remember retirement, that’s the thing we all set out to do when we’re 40! This career is likely to involve working for 3 - 5 companies during your working life, building your skills and experience steadily over time, probably becoming a specialist in an area and almost certainly managing others. Key though is the assumption that you’ll be doing similar things within a fairly narrowly defined area. In some countries this view of careers is particularly strong e.g. in Japan where even now, the idea of joining a company for life prevails.
If that’s what a career is, then careers are dead! OK, some professions (Doctors come to mind) will remain professions and although the pace of change in these professions will pick up, those of us starting out as Doctors are more likely to finish up as Doctors than other “careers”. I’ve spoken before about the research in the US showing that young adults entering the world of work now will have 14 different roles by the age of 38. Hard to believe? OK, in Europe we’re often behind the US (although we’ll hopefully never copy their eating habits), but let’s consider that hard to believe statement. Work from home is now common, companies are increasingly hiring on short term contracts. The nature of the relationship between individuals and companies is changing forever. Companies don’t pretend that they can guarantee a job for any length of time and individuals don’t pretend that they are going to be loyal for any length of time.
Most work in business in the future is going to be conducted on a project basis. Don’t expect companies to put these project teams together either. We’re all going to have to develop skills in project management and in working virtually with people from all over the world. My upcoming posts are going to explore project careers in more detail. Cheers!
incurred and cannot be recovered. It is so-called due to the British and French governments continuing to fund the Concorde project long after it was determined that it would never yield a profit.
There may be situations that aren’t as clear cut. For example if you have completed half your degree and you decide that you want to quit and get a job that you don’t need a degree for, then the sunk cost fallacy would suggest you quit (as not to spend any more time and money on a degree you don’t want. However, it is useful to have any degree behind you, especially if you are unsure exactly where your career will take you. Therefore, in this situation the sunken costs are important, as the further costs to get the degree qualification are less than they would be if the individual decides to get a degree later in life (and their course credits have expired). 
Let’s forget the stereotypes for now though. The one thing that stands out among the Accountants I know is how they all have a great grasp of business principles and have used this to real benefit during their careers. A big part of the training often involved auditing of different companies. This is a great way of getting exposure to all sorts of different sectors and business types. By the time your average nerd (sorry accountant) is 25, they have been exposed to more types of businesses than most of us will come across in our working lives. Cogitate on that for a mo!
