If you’re in secondary school or college, chances are you get asked an awful lot about what you’re going to do in the future. You may be wondering what’s the difference between a job and a career?

The difference between a job and a career

A job has a specific title and describes specifically what you are employed to do. This is the position that you hold within a company.

A career is something that may last much, much longer than any one job. In fact, a career can involve you having lots of different jobs.

The easiest way to understand the difference between a job and a careers is this. A career in education could include you working as any of the following:

• A-level maths teacher
• A classroom support assistant
• A head teacher in a primary school
• A learning mentor for year six
• A curriculum planner
• Educational administrator

You might begin your career in education as a classroom support assistant. You might progress to teaching and ultimately you might end up as a head teacher. They are all jobs that exist within the field of education.

Add to this occupations – often understood as being the same as a job. An occupation is a more general term than job but not as general as a career. As an example, the term teacher tells you something. If you are a teacher, you can expect to perform certain tasks, teaching groups of students, marking homework etc. This would be your occupation. If your job title is Teacher of GCSE English language, this tells you much more.