Careers NOW
Messy, uncertain and expanding
Let’s begin with a (?)
If you were starting work NOW, how would you expect your career path to look? Could you sketch your expectation on a napkin? That’s an honest question I like exploring across generations. When I started working, we for sure expected a clear path. A straight line. (Like on a business growth graph, going rapidly upward over time from left to right – which at least half of the time doesn’t go that way.)
Probably more predictable now than the line will be the speed, thanks to technology change which drives the economy and workplace. Including new career options. Even before AI, this acceleration has been going on for decades. (Did you know, btw, that the word “career” was originally invented to refer to a race course? 😊 So true, that metaphor.)
Just for fun, take a look at the table below: which tech change milestones did you experience YOURSELF IRL? To what impact on your career? We’ve constantly needed to learn the next tech tools. Some were easier to grab onto than others depending on how new they were to our way of working and how many versions it took for them to be friendly.
Uncertainty and new careers
When careers are not linear, they are, well, uncertain. AND NOW on top of that, we have longer healthier lives in which to deal with them.
The good news that research increasingly highlights: uncertainty is not only a stressor, it can be an expander that causes people to “embrace and even seek out meaning, fulfillment and well-being in their lives.”(1) In addition to career advancement.
There is something here for company leaders: proactively shift towards talking openly about the impact of uncertainty over a whole career. From the first foot in a professional door to who-knows-when we stop working. That dialogue can expand HR approaches – i.e. embrace the REAL context of career uncertainty and pivots over a longer lifetime. But I digress…
Navigating careers now
Wherever we are in our careers now, we can be sure that every few years, tech will bring around change. Sometimes predictable. Sometimes not. Many of us will hold a job in the future that does not exist today. Cool, if rather easier to appreciate in hindsight.
Research shows that people who better tolerate uncertainty see their futures as more expansive. This mindset tends to lead to a more open view, which in turn can stimulate more options, increase resilience in the face of obstacles, uncover new solutions and even create new career categories like what is now called senior entrepreneurism.
Maybe it’s time that we – from all generations – create strategies for messier, evolving careers in a constantly changing environment.
Multiple paths, more surprises and pivots: new chances to grow and expand.
Where were you when the tech changed?
NOTES
Originally posted last week on AGE-and-grace.com – category “relevance” over a whole lifetime. (Rebranding AGE to create new positive mindsets over a whole lifetime, across generations.) Now reposting here about managing longer careers over a whole lifetime. Same whole lifetime, tighter focus on careers. 🙂
(1) I happily discovered via Perplexity an entire journal that regularly publishes about longer careers. Was then especially happy reading an October 2025 issue article that suggests it would be timely to better understand the effects of uncertainty on our professional lives and choices. The authors refer regularly to “successful aging at work.” Maybe this will be a thing!
The journal: Work, Aging and Retirement
The article which advocates for new research: Navigating uncertainty across the lifespan in contemporary work and careers: introduction to the special issue . Authors: Sara Zaniboni PhD, Polytechnic of Milan; Julian Pfrombeck PhD, Chinese University of Hong Kong; Gudela Grote PhD, ETH Zurich.
