The lines between employment and self-employment are becoming increasingly blurred, so it's no big surprise that career advice hasn't been able to keep up.
It's true that not everyone is suited to self-employment or to employment. The reasons aren't mysterious—they're found in the combination of someone's type and style of intelligence, their family background, personality, interests and habits.
Here's what I've noticed over the years: some of the smartest people I know are semi-literate. Some of the people I know with the most education, are only smart in particular ways. Intelligence isn't one thing—it's lots of things, and different combinations matter in different contexts.
School teachers, for example, tend to be a certain type of person. Fabulous people, who deserve our undying gratitude, but risk-averse, cautious, not usually entrepreneurial. That's not a criticism, it's an observation. The skills that make someone excellent at teaching don't necessarily translate to giving career advice that spans both traditional employment and self-created work.
To be effective, career advice needs to cover what's known and what's not yet known. Careers that exist and ones that could be created in the future. But most frameworks only address one side—career guidance assumes that employment is the goal, and business coaching assumes that starting a business is the goal. The reality could be a combination of those things at different times.
The answers were always out there
When I went looking for answers to questions about the nature of intelligence and what made people capable of different kinds of work, I found that all the answers were already out there.
Lots of smart people, or people who were smart in certain ways, had created and tested theories about intelligence, personality, interests, values, and success. But none of the theories were all that useful in isolation. You had to combine them together to really make sense of what you were seeing.
The problem with career advice
It breaks my heart that we have so many young people, including many in low socioeconomic areas and in the corrections system, believing they'll never amount to much. Not because they lack ability, but because they don't know how to think about what they do have going for them in a positive and objective way. We also have young people from high socioeconomic areas with every advantage but no real direction in life. Different problem, same root cause—they don't understand their actual abilities and how to apply them strategically.
In my work as a coach and marketing specialist, I've worked with people across the spectrum. Here's what I've learned: no matter how smart someone is, everyone can benefit from understanding how to reverse engineer success at anything.
The ability to see your own transferable skills objectively, recognize patterns in what makes you successful, and apply those insights to new contexts—that could empower an enormous number of people.
This is why I'm attracted to career development coaching and why I've developed the Complete Picture Model and the Real World Smart programs. Not because I had new theories to contribute, but because I could see how what we already knew, could fit together to create a practical framework anyone could use.
Career development shouldn't be limited to people pursuing traditional employment. It shouldn't ignore the growing reality of independent work, portfolio careers, and self-created opportunities. And it definitely shouldn't leave people—young or experienced—blind to their own capabilities and possibilities.
Sandy Taylor is a Career & Marketing Strategy Coach with Cert IV in Career Development. She works with independent professionals navigating career transitions and is in the process of developing Real World Smart career programs for use in schools. Learn more at thebusinessofwork.com.au and realworldsmart.com.au
