So let’s be honest, Covid has really mucked things up for us this year- no gigs, zero festivals and that holiday with the crew that you had planned is put on hold too. However, before you give up, it’s not all negative vibes here as having a portfolio career could be a chance to mix things up. For information more up to date than your iphone iOS, look no further.
Portfolio careers basically means having a set of skills that you can transfer to many different roles.
Historically, your parents or grandparents would have had one or maybe two main careers and would work for companies for longer, however, even before Covid-19, young people increasingly have a large set of skills that they can apply to lots of jobs throughout their lives.
Here is more information to help you understand what a portfolio career is:
- Your skillset is transferable across many industries and roles
- You could have multiple sources of income at once or over a period of time across different roles and industries
- It allows you to be resilient in the face of changing job opportunities/industries and remain in work that you enjoy
- You could work more flexibly - perhaps even as a freelancer of being self employed
- It allows you to be very self-aware as you understand and can apply your skill set to different areas
For Example:
Hattie is a master in applications like Wordpress and Squarespace, has a photography qualification, has great rapport with other people and is excellent at written English and has previously created the school newspaper.
Because of these skills, Hattie sometimes does wedding photography alongside her most recent jobs in writing for a local magazine publication and developing websites for local businesses. All of these roles provide her with income and allow her to maximise the use of her many key skills.
The best way to figure out what your skills are is to write a list of everything you are good at, your strengths, weaknesses, things you want to improve upon and give examples next to them so you can back your claims up. You then need to figure out what job roles/industries you can apply your strengths too and work out a plan to improve the skills that you are weaker on.