# What is the difference between a job and a career?



## .17485 (Jan 12, 2011)

What is the difference between a job and a career? I think a job is something you do to get money short term. A career is long term that lasts for amount of years. You can have difference careers in different industries.


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## yet another intj (Feb 10, 2013)

Staying in the same job for a long time. = A career.


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## jbking (Jun 4, 2010)

Tega1 said:


> What is the difference between a job and a career?


Jobs are specific positions with a company doing work while a career is a more general grouping of various positions and seen at a higher level.

"Web Developer at SMART Technologies" would be a job while web developer would be a career.



Tega1 said:


> You can have difference careers in different industries.


You can have different careers within the same industry as within IT there are managers, developers, analysts and administrators for a few of the bigger buckets.

You can also have the same career in different industries. For example, a CRM software developer may work in agriculture, transportation, retail and other industries as most industries do require some form of CRM solution.


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## countrygirl90 (Oct 11, 2012)

Job can be anything ,even something for which you might not have studied or dreamed of ,doing with passion and a plan ,while a career is a deliberate choice of profession that an individual wants to get employed into .
Job is done with the purpose of financial support while ,career inspires us to be more updated and competitive to reach the level of success ,even if the pay may not be so good at first .


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## elixare (Aug 26, 2010)

When you say you're in a certain career, that means that you're competing within a well defined segment of the labor market along with everyone else who are in the same "career" regardless of company affiliation

When you say you're in a job, it means a buyer (most likely a company) within that well defined segment of the labor market has decided to "purchase" your service and enter into a labor relationship with you 

Eg a salesperson has a "career" as a salesperson because he's competing in the broad salespeople market along with other salespeople who are part of the salespeople market. As long as he's still participating in that salespeople market, he's still has a "career" as a salesperson. 

That salesperson may then take a "job" at a certain company since that company has decided to purchase his service from the market and he therefore now has a "job" at company X

IE. Career => a declaration of participation to compete within a subset of the labor market 
Job => a transactional purchase made between a certain company and an economic agent who's participating in that labor market


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## FromTheWorldUp (Aug 30, 2010)

Commitment.


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## nonnaci (Sep 25, 2011)

career => potential work for higher returns in the form of people networking/status/salary/position. Job is just a catchall term for paid position.


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## Leliel (Nov 25, 2012)

To me, having a job means doing something I don't give a shit about because I need money. A career would be something I wanted to build, something that I was passionate about.
That's just my definition though, I doubt that's what would come up in a dictionary.


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## Devin87 (May 15, 2011)

I agree with the people who have said that a job vs. career, in the way most people mean it when they say them with a distinction between them, involves how long term you're looking. Yes, you can say that you can have a job within your career, but that's not how people usually mean in when they say things like "I don't want a job, I want a career!". A job is something you don't plan to make a long term go at-- say more than ten years. So you can have a summer job or a high school job or a job to hold you over so you don't have to go on welfare while you're looking to break into your intended career after college. It's something you don't usually have much stock in and aren't really looking to advance too far in. You can have a job at McDonalds while in college, or you can make a career out of McDonalds and work your way up the ranks and become a store or regional manager or just a position you can work at long term.

It's not always about motivation and caring about what you're doing. My problem is I'm more motivated and invested in my job than in my career. I've got a teaching degree and a position in a school and that's my career, but my summer/weekend job at an amusement park is where my heart is. If I could make it a career I would say screw teaching and put my life into that job in a second, but they don't have too many potentially career positions available.


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## bluekitdon (Dec 19, 2012)

In a nutshell for me it means this.

Job = Work for money. Most people have to take a "job" at some point in their adult life to make ends meet.

Career = Work for money + enjoy it and grow in your field over an extended period of time, possibly most of a lifetime. Includes jobs, but typically jobs build on each other IE customer service rep, customer service engineer, master customer service engineer, service manager. Could also refer to something you don't enjoy but most people don't get very far in their career if they don't enjoy it to some extent in my experience.


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

A job is more short term thinking and basically relates to a current role that you are doing to make money. A career is the long term picture and the sum of all the jobs you have done in a certain realm. If you say only have 1 job, it's basically considered a career because it's the only job in the equation. If you change jobs and it's in the same field, then that is also considered a career since you're adding the sum of these jobs into the big picture.


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## Tjones (Mar 20, 2013)

duration is not what separates a job from a career, the ability to develop and progress is what makes a career possible


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