How do you differentiate a job from career?

[Holicent]

The most important thing to remember is that there is such a thing as a "career." There are careers, which are the result of a few good choices, or bad choices. Most people spend their lives making the wrong choices, and never realize it. Most jobs do not lead to careers. In fact, most jobs lead to dead ends and disappointment. The difference between a job and a career is much more than one might think:

A career is something you can do for decades without ever getting tired of it. A job may be exciting for some time, but rarely for long enough for you to really get good at it. A career is something that leads somewhere when you're done with it--not just another dead-end job with no future in sight. A job is just work; not much else can be said about it except that someone else needs it done now and wants you to do it now. A career takes hard work; but when you've finally gotten good at something and started making money at it, you'll realize that all of your hard work wasn't wasted after all.

 

[Jasz]

It's easy to get confused about the difference between a job and career. A job is something that you do for pay, in exchange for money or other benefits. A career is a path of work that leads towards success, influence and income.

It's important to distinguish between the two because they are not interchangeable terms. If you have a job, you might work for several employers over your lifetime. That makes it difficult to identify the core elements of your life. Your career will be defined by what you do in exchange for money or other rewards. You can't have a career without having a job at some point along the way, but it doesn't mean that you can't have multiple careers over time.

A career is different from a job because it's more about who you are and where you want to go than it is about how much money you make or how much power you wield over others (although money and power are also important parts of careers).