One of the key issues in career management is that you own your career and your employer owns your job. Your career has permanence and is always with you – your job is only temporary and your job and its owner –your employer -can change many times over the life of your career. While in most cases your career and job are closely aligned when you begin your job they become less congruent over time as either your goals and aspirations and the skills and experience required to achieve those goals change or your employer wishes to make changes to the nature of the role.

The older and more experienced you become the harder it becomes to find a job that will progress your career

Strangely the older one gets the harder it becomes to find a job and certainly one that will progress your career. As you enter your thirties and forties you develop a far greater array of knowledge skills and experience and have a much greater insight into your occupation or profession thereby being able to increasingly add value to your employer. However the numbers of opportunities open to you as an older executive falls dramatically due to the pyramid hierarchy effect of fewer senior management or technical positions being available as you become more senior.

Always aim to develop experience that is marketable

You convert your potential into experience as you move from entry level through to mature career stage. Potential here is defined as your potential to perform to the required level and then to continue to grow in the future to perform at higher levels. In the early stages you sell yourself internally and externally largely on potential. Moving through your career you then sell a combination of potential and experience and then onto the mature career stage where its predominately your track record of experience that you are selling. The experience you gain is obviously significant as it will sell you or not sell you in your career.