A portfolio career is when a series of paid activities are carried out simultaneously or, if not simultaneous, with fixed period of time for each activity.

There are long term forecasts that indicate that people just having a long term full time career will be in the minority.  It does not matter if this activity is carried out under employment or self employment basis or a mixture of both.

Let’s examine the types of portfolio careers:

–          Working full time as a contractor for a fixed length of time and then another career

–          Have a full time job / contract and introduced a part –time different activity

–          Having a multitude of part-time activities carried out at the same time

This trend has been popular for the over 45 for a few years.  It is believed that it is the future for the 20s to 30s age group.

Nobody will hang you a portfolio career, you have to search and decide what you want to do.  In my case, I secured a part time job with that aim.  The only problem you might encounter, if you set up to do what I did, is that you feel contented with the income the “part-time” job brings and procrastination sets in.

For example if you are in a full time job you might look at your skills and abilities to set up a blog in something  that interests you or related to your profession/skill and this blog could be the spring board to your part-time activities that, if done right, might become full time.  Another departing point could be “what skills you have, people paid money in the past?”

Especially in these times of economy downturn, portfolios careers offer the added advantage that all the eggs are not in one basket, if the company goes into liquidation or you are made redundant, you are not relying in one income stream alone.

Also it is easier to move with the trends and offer new things easily, think about the large corporations that take years to change procedures as various committees have to approve the change.

Remember also that a portfolio career might be the first stone to an entrepreneurship career; you might find a niche or gap in the market as you are carrying out the various activities.

The perception has always been that the 20s to 34s age range where the more likely entrepreneurs, but this is not true, the Kauffman Foundation in a recent study found that the 20s to 34s were the most unlikely to start a company.  They found that the highest ages of 55 and 64 were the group where the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity.

A portfolio career is a natural progression for the advice given to companies to diversify.  If diversification is the key for large corporations why it cannot be for the individual?

Why a portfolio career?  It would give you freedom to choose the areas of your skill set that you enjoy most.  I have a friend that has a part time job as a bookkeeper and she enjoys the interaction it gives her will her clients but she also loves illustrating and graphics so she taught herself Photoshop and then she did a course on it and now she offers graphics and illustrations through her website.

My portfolio career, until recently, constituted my accountancy work for American Essentials and then I do a few tax returns and accounts for friends and family (I stopped advertising for clients when I realised that I did not want to do it full-time) and my e-commerce or internet marketing.  I trade for all these activities under my limited company banner.    For me, my portfolio career was intentional as I had left my full time career in 2004 and had gone to live in Argentina for two years and when I came back I actually looked for a part time Financial Controller/Financial Director work.  Since moving to Spain I am an Internet Marketer full-time.

Hasta la vista ….