Feature Article: Portfolio Careers: Creating a Career of Multiple Part-Time Jobs
Special Feature: 10 Portfolio Career Tips
Quintessential Site: Featured Career Web Site of this Issue
The Career Doctor: Answering Your Questions
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search
Notes from the Editor: About this Issue...
"Portfolio career" is a common term outside the U.S., especially the UK, but not well known here.
In this issue, those unfamiliar with the term will learn more about it --
as an option you may want to consider for your own career.
You may want to start looking for the components of your portfolio career
using our job portal.
--Katharine Hansen, Credentialed Career Master, Certified Electronic Career Coach,
and editor at
kathy@quintcareers.com
Feature Article: Portfolio Careers
Portfolio Careers: Creating a Career of Multiple Part-Time Jobs
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
Is it the career of the future or a passing fad? Will workers and employers in the U.S. embrace the
concept as strongly as in Europe? Is it right for you?
The "it" is a portfolio career, in which instead of working a traditional full-time job, you work
multiple part-time jobs (including part-time employment, temporary jobs, freelancing, and
self-employment) with different employers that when
combined are the equivalent of a full-time
position. Portfolio careers offer more flexibility, variety, and freedom, but also require organizational
skills as well as risk tolerance.
Portfolio careers are usually built around a collection of skills and interests, though the only consistent
theme is one of career self-management. With a portfolio career you no longer have one job, one employer, but
multiple jobs and employers within one or more professions.
So, you have the desire to be your own boss, utilize all your skills and abilities, seek
out variety and new challenges, attain a better work/life balance -- and you want to do all this
through developing a portfolio career of several part-time jobs.
A great site for those considering portfolio careers to find everything you
need for the freelancer portion of your career, including freelance job sites, online courses,
articles, and other resources.
Articles cover such topics as Job Search Tips, Finance/Tax, Legal/Contract,
Promotion/Finding Work, Getting Started, Freelance 101, and Work-at-Home Parenting,
as well as typical freelance professions, such as Graphic Design, Web Building, Writing,
Illustration, Accounting/Finance,Tech/IT, and Clerical/Other.
The site also offers Freelance Message Boards on which you can discuss freelance and career decisions
with other freelancers, as well as fee-based services for freelancers.
Get the latest career, college, and job-search news you need!
Have you read the Quint Careers Weblog (Blog)?
It consists of career and job-search news, trends,
and scoops for job-seekers, compiled by the staff
of Quintessential Careers.
The blog is a great way to stay posted on the most
recent events occurring in the career and employment fields.
Barbara writes: "I'm an experienced professional, currently working full-time, but feeling a bit burned
out and under-appreciated. I also have a number of other strengths and skills that my employer
does not utilize.
So, here's what I am thinking. I want to sort of have multiple careers at the same time. I don't want to work
more than the typical 40 hours or so a weekŠ I don't want to moonlight, but I do want more control and more from
my job/career. Do you have any suggestions?"
Patty writes: "I am going for my third visit to a prospective position. This will be the third time
meeting with the director, and the reason for the third visit is so she can make sure I meet co-workers.
The last few people were not a good fit. I wore the same suit with a different shell the first two times and am wondering
if it would be appropriate to wear a long skirt and blouse to meet the co-workers. I really don't want to wear the
same suit a third time to meet the same director. The dress in this counseling setting is casual
but professional."
Keith writes: "I am about to embark on my doctoral coursework in economics. After spending the last six
years as a corporate finance manager, I am excited about the opportunity to research and teach. However,
I have not yet uncovered any resources to help new graduates find assistant professor positions. Surely,
some school needs an economics professor somewhere. Is there anywhere I can go for help?"
Jeanette writes: "I am a current undergrad student upon the threshold of graduation and am in search
of a job. I have compiled a resume and sent it to one employer that posted a job I was very much interested
in. My question is focused on a matter of etiquette. It's been perhaps two to three weeks since I submitted
my resume, and I was wondering if it would be proper and conducive to the exhibition of etiquette to call the
employer and ask if they received my resume and if so were interested?"
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Career & Job Tips
If you're a woman considering entrepreneurship as part of a portfolio career, these stats from
Nancy Collamer of Jobsandmoms.com via
Career Masters Institute should be of interest:
10.1 million firms are at least 50 percent owned by women.
46 percent of all businesses are at least 50 percent owned by women.
Between 1997-2002, the number of privately held majority or 50 percent women-owned firms grew by
11 percent, more than 1.5 times the rate of all privately-held firms.
The number of women-owned employer firms grew by 37 percent between 1997 and 2002, four times
the growth rate of all employer firms.
One in every 11 adult women owns a business.
Women entrepreneurs generate nearly $2.3 trillion in revenues to the U.S. economy.
One in five women-owned businesses is owned by a woman of color.
If you're thinking about entrepreneurship, Drake Beam Morin suggests considering nine realities
before starting a business and think in terms of the entrepreneurial lifestyle -- one that would be
very different from that of a corporate employee.
Time: No matter how diligently people work in a corporate setting, they are almost certain to work
harder and longer creating and building a business of their own. Seven-day workweeks are not uncommon,
particularly during the early years.
Accountability: For many entrepreneurs, a key attraction of starting a business is that they are ultimately
accountable only to themselves, which means that they can take all the credit for success, but it also demands
that they accept all the blame if things go wrong.
Risk: Entrepreneurs have to accept risk. When people think about the risks associated with running a business,
personal financial risk usually appears at the top of the list. Additional risks to consider range
from the risk of embarrassment should your venture fail to unanticipated legal risks.
Security: Employment at a large organization typically includes a range of real and intangible
security benefits: a regular paycheck, health benefits, backup support for especially inactive times, etc.
Consider if and how you can cover all the security benefits important for you and your new venture.
Feedback: At established companies, formal or informal systems usually acknowledge jobs well done
and identify sub-standard performance. Entrepreneurs may need to cope for long periods in which
they receive limited, irregular feedback.
Sociability: Loneliness is often a major component of entrepreneurial life. What's missing in the new
business is the social dimension of life in a large organization.
Support: Corporate employees tend to take the extensive support resources of company life for granted.
Calls are screened, copies are made, and bathrooms are cleaned while employees work. By contrast, founders of
new businesses are likely to serve as everything from CEO to maintenance personnel.
Identity: People often overlook another by-product of corporate life: the sense of identity it can provide.
Lifestyle: Successful entrepreneurs often demonstrate a real love, or even an obsession, for their businesses.
Work becomes their principal commitment, taking precedence over other aspects of their lives.
Also of interest to those seeking portfolio careers, America's staffing companies have nearly
fully regained the 28 percent loss in employment they experienced as a result of the past U.S.
economic recession, reports the America Staffing Association (ASA).
From July through September 2004, U.S. staffing firms employed an average of 2.6 million
temporary and contract workers daily, on par with the industry's peak employment in the third quarter
of 2000 and 14 percent more people than in the same period in 2003.
"It's good news for both employees and companies who seek flexible work arrangements,"
says ASA president and CEO Richard Wahlquist.
If your school, organization, business or other
entity has a Web site, we welcome you to link to Quintessential Careers.
If you already have a link from your site, we want you to know we
appreciate it. If you don't have a link to us, please
send a request to your site's Webmaster to establish a
link to Quintessential Careers. Thanks so much!
For more details (including sample HTML copy), see our
Link to Us page.
Ad: Could You Benefit from a Professional Resume Writer?
An Assessment for Job-seekers
Are you thinking about engaging the services of a professional writer
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WATCH FOR feature articles on these topics in upcoming
issues of QuintZine:
* Career Fairs: Shortcut to Interviews
* Your "Elevator Speech"
* Job Burnout Quiz
* Job Burnout Remedies
* The Value of Internships Abroad and Study Abroad
* Quarter-Life Career Issues
* Career Success is Within Your Reach
* Tips of Liberal-Arts Grads
* Top 10 Fears of Job-seekers
* For Job-hunting Success, Develop a Detailed Job-Search Plan
* How to Build a Personal Advisory Board
* Keep Your Career Dreams Alive
* College-Prep Summer Camps
* 10 Teen Summer-Job Tips
* MBA Career Portfolios
* Trends/Tips in Career Portfolios
* Pre-Hire Background/Credit Checks
* Noncompete Clauses
* Entrepreneurs
* Get a Job in Sales/Pharmaceutical Sales
* Critical Elements of the Job Search
* Managing Job Stress
* Telecommuting Ranks High
* Sticky Job Interview Situations
* Situational Interviews
* 10 Resume Tips
* Why Hire a Resume Writer?
* Is Your Resume Lost in the Internet Void?
* Career Activist Quiz
* Practice Career Management to Avoid Career Crisis
* The Changing Landscape of College Admissions
* Offbeat Ways to Pay for College
* Financial Aid/Scholarship Timetable
* Build Confidence and Avoid Insecurity in Job Interviews
* Empty Nest Job-seekers
* Baby Boomers Beware
* Are You Sabotaging Your Job-Search/Career?
* Quiz: Marketing Yourself
* Marketing Yourself with internal/External Promotions
* Lifelong Networking
* Networking for the Shy
* Converting a Seasonal Job to a Permanent Position
* Working Night Shifts/Odd Hours
* Quintessential Career Profiles of YOU, our readers
* Q&As with well-known career experts
* Career, College, and Job-Search Book reviews
. . . and much, much more!
Don't ever want to miss another issue of QuintZine? Get a free subscription to
the email version of QuintZine by completing our
subscription form.
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Let Dr. Randall S. Hansen, The Career Doctor, help you work through all your college, career, and job-search concerns,
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Quintessential Careers also offers writing services
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Need a speaker for your career-oriented conference or
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If you're a woman considering entrepreneurship as part of a portfolio career, these stats from
Nancy Collamer of 
