Portfolio Careerist blog archive

I began working for myself in 2010 and started this blog called 'The Portfolio Careerist' about creating and sustaining a portfolio career. I've archived it here for posterity. Since then I've been invited to give a TEDx talk on portfolio careers, met countless fellow and aspiring portfolio careerists and succeeded in making a living with a portfolio career incorporating design, communications and education. These days, still maintaining a very portfolio careers ethos, I run a boutique outsourcing agency, Nudge.

Careering

A blog post from a valued colleague new to portfolio careers...

In Helen’s definition of a Portfolio Career she uses the phrase “far from conventional”: which for me embodies the idea of both multi-faceted employment and my personality. Much to the frustration of my family, I have always defied convention, taken the alternative or more demanding options, or broken out of the box to embark upon an adventure!

On reflection my crystal ball could have told me I would become a Portfolio Careerist. With areas of study including Art and Design, Cultural History, and Communications and PR, with personal interests in travel and hospitality, what I do today unintentionally incorporates all of those elements. After all, a leopard never changes its spots.

I moved to Cambridge on 1 June this year with few expectations and no plans, hoping to find somewhere to settle. Despite my ad-hoc approach to life I quickly found myself adjusting to the city, finding its rhythm and becoming part of a close community. This whimsical approach of mine does not usually transpire into secure, established employment. Therefore a Portfolio Career suits me greatly, and after numerous job applications, and a few unusual agency posts, I decided to take the leap of faith and go it alone. Now, I am no longer “careering”; I am a Portfolio Careerist.

This winter I find myself in an incredibly exciting place. I continue to work at Urban Larder in Cambridge, a vibrant local produce store and coffee shop. This hub provides me with connections to local community groups and business owners who use the space to hold informal meetings, it gives me a great amount of joy as I have worked in cafés and restaurants for over ten years whilst studying and travelling and it meets all my foodie/caffeine needs!

In addition, I recently got in touch with Helen, the Portfolio Careerist, an old friend who kindly offered me work with her Comms Agency and the opportunity to expand my copywriting portfolio. Seeing how she juggles roles, interests, passions and expertise is inspirational and demonstrates to all those who are trying to carve out their own portfolio career - how it can be done successfully. Working for Helen is varied and engaging, and encourages me to write regularly. Writing is a skill I am very grateful for and keen to improve upon. Words are a powerful tool. They instigate people to think, do, smile and talk; building a career around words is so rewarding for those reasons.

I have taken up a volunteer role at Cambridge Art Salon, a community interest company who provide studios and a gallery space to creatives. CAS is the only arts enterprise incubator in Cambridge, serving artists and cultural entrepreneurs who need a nurturing, affordable environment to springboard their creative idea. Using my skills and interests I am becoming involved in the PR and marketing, and am being given the opportunity to expand my portfolio, to network and to become involved in fundraising. My role encourages me to reignite my interest in art and design and I have already established a collaboration between another local business and Cambridge Art Salon.

As we hurtle ever closer to Christmas, I can all but hope for more of the same. My network is growing by the day, and the response from those I have met in the early stages of my Portfolio Career has been nothing but supportive. Living in such an active community will be to my benefit and I hope to find more work from within the local area.

My blossoming Portfolio Career offers me such freedom that I still find myself with time, energy and motivation to explore my own personal interests. 2013 will see me embarking on a pottery course, exploring the possibility of establishing an Arts and Culture blog, and continuing in the hunt for business premises in which I can establish my very own food haven and coffee shop. Holding down a nine to five would, for me, mean that these desires would forever remain elusive.

Above all, I support inclusion and local business, creativity and freedom of expression, I believe in learning from others and sharing knowledge. My work supports people to fulfil their ideals, and the people I meet enable me to fulfil mine. For anyone thinking about embarking upon their own Portfolio Career, I highly recommend it.

Does “sticking to my guns” mean “shooting myself in the foot”?

Very pleased to be hosting a new post from Nikki Wilson following up her last guest post... 

I’ve previously written about my experiences as an aspiring and fledgling portfolio careerist.  Having confirmed in my own mind that it was a path I felt would suit me at the end of last year, two opportunities came up in January that allowed me to take my first steps along it.  One was the Vodafone World of Difference Programme that finished in early July, and I was then lucky enough to secure some temping work at a local alternative to custody programme.  While an administrative role, I have still valued it as a chance to learn how a different type of project operates and to work with a new beneficiary group.  It also suited well as I could work there simultaneously with a role as an Interim FD in a Brixton charity, travel to which made me reluctant to take on any further London commitments until it ended in August.  So, a case of “so far so good” – everything seemed to have fallen in to place quite nicely.

However, it’s now September and I’m left with only the temping work for 19.5 hours a week, which will end fairly shortly when a permanent appointment is made.  It’s certainly not for want of trying.  Almost every spare hour since July has been taken up searching and applying for jobs and it’s proving very tough.  A significant part of the challenge is that I’m obstinately continuing with my vision of a Portfolio Career, though the part-time, short-term roles, with a good degree of interest or development potential that I want to find in order to achieve this are not easy to track down or secure.  In this respect I’m actually lucky that my main focus is in the not for profit sector where this type of role is undoubtedly more common than in the private sector.  Much of my searching so far has been personal and direct, using a variety of websites, but I have also now been contacting agencies, including a full day in London last week meeting recruiters.  While they are more receptive to the idea than I had expected, I can’t quite shake the feeling that my reluctance to take on full time roles for anything more than a very short period, or to narrow my search to one type of work, is seen as more than a little perverse in the current job climate.  The impression that I am causing my search to be far more stressful than it needs to be is clear, and that I may be “shooting myself in the foot” in terms of my own career development and certainly earning potential, by being so set in my views of what I want.

As I continue to trawl websites and cheekily ask all and sundry for work, I mostly remain hopeful that whatever I take on will not be sufficiently restrictive as to prevent me from at least continuing to build up a further network of contacts and experience that may lead to opportunities in the future, or tie me down so that another exciting change and challenge is not far around the corner.  I could opt for an easier life and start considering permanent, full-time roles, and I won’t rule this out if an interesting enough option arises but what is certain is that being faced with this choice has made me surer than ever that, having made the first tentative steps towards a Portfolio Career, I’m not ready to give up on the idea just yet!

That’s not to say that my head doesn’t drop from time to time, which is exactly when I’ve discovered the value of talking to people that make me feel positive about it.   I’ve been immensely lucky to find I am building a great network of people who are really supportive – some of whom, including Helen, are relatively new portfolio careerist friends who I’m heartened to find, I have met through online forums – they really do work!   Pursuing a portfolio career may well be viewed by some as a counter-intuitive choice but it’s ever more clear to me that for some people,  it’s one worth making,  whilst remaining open to the possibility that there is always an option to change direction again in future.