Ask Christa! How Can I Talk About My Job as a Career? (S5E59)

Introduction

Hi everyone and welcome to Ask Christa! the place where you can ask questions about how to work through business challenges and workplace issues. I'm Christa Dhimo and as we start to wrap up Season 5’s theme of Career Growth, this next listener question may seem abstract at first, but that doesn’t mean it’s uncommon.

But first, take a moment to submit YOUR question to my show’s site AskChrista.com, that’s Christa with a C-H, and while you’re there, click the blue follow button, submit a review, and sign up for my weekly Sunday night newsletter, More Answers, where you get relevant insights to common workplace challenges to set you up for the work week.

Listener Question

Here’s the listener question, “I hear people talk about their job while they also talk about their career. They sound so confident and sure of themselves. I like my job. I’m an office manager for a small electrician company, and this is where I want to be for a long time. I love the people I work with, and every time I have an idea to improve things, the owner and her husband are so supportive. I’ve been here about six years. It’s the greatest place I’ve ever worked, but I don’t really call this a career. It’s my job. I would LOVE to talk about it as part of my career, though, because I really feel like this is what I’m meant to do, and when I hear my friends talk about their careers, that’s what this feels like. But I have no idea how to talk about my work like it’s my career. I know this isn’t really a business challenge, but I can’t believe I’m the only one who doesn’t think of her job as part of a career. I think my problem is I really feel like this IS my career, but how can I think of my job that way?”

It's OK if You Don’t Feel Like You’re in a “Career Job”

Here in the United States, our careers take on a big part of our identities—it’s often how we meet people, how we learn about others, and how we start up conversations. We grow up talking about what we want to do. Some spend years in school focused on what they want to do for a living.

So…. It’s no wonder that some people feel out of place if they don’t think about life through the lens of a career. It’s also no wonder that, if you haven’t lived your childhood or your life through the lens of a career, that when you’re in a job you love, you might not think about it as your career.

I want to start out by saying, “That’s OK.” Our listener talks about how they love their job and feel like it’s what they’re meant to do, which is amazing. Many people can’t say that, even in a job that is directly aligned to their career. And I know plenty of people who have a job just to support their lives, and they don’t talk about careers at all—or if they’re forced to, they’ll say something like, “my career is to live a good life.” (and that’s amazing, too… because many people can’t say that, either)

So the first thing I want to do is relieve the pressure from ANYONE that you need to be thinking about life in terms of having a career, or need to be thinking of a job as part of your career. You just don’t need to. Sure, it will be helpful to know what you like or love the most about your job, the various themes of all your jobs (which is how you can describe your career, and I’ll talk about that in a moment), and the ways you’ve used your strengths to contribute your best to an organization… and it will be helpful to know all of that because the answers to those questions, especially as you grow and develop and gain experience, will inform the future roles you’re most interested in, the way in which you talk about your contributions during an interview, and the way you’ll advocate for yourself when it comes to compensation. But… that’s for another episode. For now, just know that it’s OK if you talk about your job, or jobs, as… jobs… and not as a career.

The Career Mindset (what does a “career” mean anyway??) 

Additionally, it used to be that you’d have one job or function per career, and that’s also NOT TRUE anymore. Even my generation, GenX, haven’t picked a job in a career and stayed with that one job aligned to one career track, although obviously if you’re in a licensure job, chances are you got in and stayed, like being a plumber or a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher. But still… if you know people in those roles, they’ve likely changed positions: went into management, or went into industry, or changed positions in one way or another.

I make this point because the way people think about careers has changed. It used to be far more linear. Get in, stay in, move up. But it’s far more common to Get in, grow, develop, shift, change, jump to something else, grow, develop, shift, change. 

So maybe the focus should be less on what a “career” means, and more on what your WORK means when you talk about a career. That would certainly help our listener with what they are asking: how to talk about their job as part of a career.

Talking About Your Career

And so, I’d first start by taking inventory of your strengths, what you love to do, how you work, and what you’ve contributed to various teams and organizations to date—and when I say “teams,” I’d think way back to memories of how you work in a team, even as a child, which is one of the purest reflections you can do when thinking of how you work in a team. Were you the one bringing friends together to plan out a fun idea? Were you the one who could see the common thread of thought across friends who sounded like they all wanted different things? Were you the one friends confided in and did that mean you were better able to bring friends together and help them feel less shy around each other? Were you the one who always showed up and did all you could to contribute cool ideas and pitch in toward the plan?

Take inventory of your strengths, what you love to do, and how you work. That is likely the most reflective of your “career,” no matter how you want to talk about it. For our listener, they love their job, which tells me they are using a lot of their natural strengths and are able to be themselves, make an impact, be part of a team, and contribute their best each day. Most times, our jobs are—or eventually become—a reflection of us. And when it doesn’t or can’t be, for any reason, is usually when we realize it’s time to move on.

So after some reflection, and as our listener requested wanting to talk about their job as part of their career, why not say, “I manage small business offices, where I get to improve how the business works, and contribute the best I have to offer so that the office, and the business, runs smoothly every day.” 

You see, you don’t have to say or do much to talk about your job as your career. 

Additional Resources

For your resources, located in the show notes, I’ve included resources that distinguish the difference between a career and a job, and I offer them not so you can slice and dice what one means over the other, but so you can gain some perspective and perhaps some additional phrasing to help you talk about your job as part of your career.  The first is from Big Future, which is a college and career planning site. It’s a REALLY fast read with high schoolers as a target audience, but I find those site to often have the best resources—even for me—because they start with the basics and they’re quick about it. There are also links that help you find career interests, and we ALL need that kind of help from time to time, no matter how long we’ve been working.

The second one is from Career Smarter, written by Devin Blewitt in March 2023. It’s another article that reviews the difference between a job and a career, but with a different angle: it’s more related to where your passion is and the longevity of the work. Skimable, quality writing, and includes a table to compare and contrast a job with a career. I think this might be of high value for our Listener, but also for anyone looking to discuss their job within the context of a career.

Last, I included a refreshing, contrarian-view article from Lucy Todd from the Lucy Todd Coaching site. I’m not affiliated with her work, so cannot endorse, but this article is a good one. It’s called, “I don’t want a career—is that OK?” It was written in March 2024, and updated November 2025.

Wrap Up & Submitting Your Questions

And that’s a wrap for Episode 59 of Season 5 focused on Career Growth! Just one more episode and we’re in Season SIX, which is another consolidation season, and I’ll focus on the DOZENS of questions I’ve received about dealing with bad bosses— yup, I’ve had them, too… A LOT of them….

I want to thank you for your support by sending in your questions. You can submit YOUR question on my show’s site, AskChrista.com, that’s Christa with a C-H, where you will see all my episodes listed based on category and season. While your there—sign up for my More Answers… newsletter, where you will receive additional content on Sunday nights to set you up for the work week. 

And remember, if you have a business challenge or a workplace issue—Ask Christa!