In your opinion, what is the difference between a job and a career?

IMO a career is a group or string of jobs (positions, engagements, gigs) in the same general area of endeavor, such as transportation, project management, or aviation. Each job has its unique requirements and you should have your particular accomplishments; however, each job has some commonality with the other jobs in your career. A 20 or 30-year military career is usually a good example. You start out as a junior officer with little experience and knowledge in your career field, e.g., transportation. You have several assignments (jobs) with increasing responsibility and rank. Your experience builds as does you knowledge, skills, and abilities. As you complete your last job before military retirement, you find a job with a private sector company in the transportation business. Your transportation career continues as you hang up the uniform and put on a coat and tie as a junior executive with a transportation company.

Jobs are like rocks in the mud. You hop from one to another, until you can find a clear dry path. The clear dry path is your career. The unfortunate ones, find that their path has always been and will always be one rock in the mud after another rock in the mud.

A friend who graduated from Anesthesia school with me said something I have never forgotten. He said “ we have had our careers now it is just a job”. Once the excitement wears off and you have decided to quit advancing it is a job. For some people that never happens.