The Working World Has Changed

Not long ago, the standard American career looked something like this: go to school, get a job, stay with that employer for 30 or 40 years, retire, collect your pension. It was predictable. It was orderly. And for most people today, it is gone. 

The average worker now changes jobs every five years or fewer – meaning 20 percent of the workforce is changing jobs every year. Some of those changes are by choice. Others are not. What has changed across the board is the expectation that any single job, employer or skill set will carry you through an entire career. 

Today it is more realistic to expect that you will spend 20 to 40 years in one field, then step away and enter a completely new one. In between, you may return to school, take extended breaks – what some call a mini-retirement – and then re-enter the workforce in a different capacity. Some people do all of this simultaneously: taking night classes, working part-time and rebuilding their professional direction while still employed. 

This pattern is already common in fields like law enforcement, the military and public education, where workers can become eligible for pensions before they reach 50. Many of them go on to entirely new careers. Some discover their most meaningful work only after their first career ends. The pattern is no longer unusual. It is becoming the norm. 

The implication is significant. If your career is going to span several decades and probably more than one field, then planning for it requires more than just choosing a job. It requires thinking seriously about what competencies you are building, what you want your life to look like and how you intend to stay relevant through changes you cannot fully predict.