Tired of the daily grind – the old nine to five? Are you desperate for a bit more flexibility to your day, a little less routine and a bit more creativity – then maybe a portfolio career is for you? BY CLAIRE MAHONEY

It sounds exciting, but what exactly is it? Well, basi- cally a portfolio career is a neat phrase to describe the working habits of the growing number of people that do two or more jobs for two or more different people. You may be, for example, a PA for a blue chip firm three days a week and teach yoga on the other two days. It doesn’t really matter what you do - what matters is that you have more control over your time and also where you work. It is no surprise really that portfolio working is on the

increase. Times are tough and job security is scarce. We have all heard the phrase; “there is no job for life any- more”. So many people – be it due to redundancy, moth- erhood, a career change or simply for a more stimulating working life – make the decision to take their career into their own hands. Understandably it is not an easy deci- sion to make, and of course if you are made redundant then it’s not necessarily something you will have planned. This is what happened to Katie, who after losing her

job working in marketing for a large healthcare company decided she was going to work from home. She started off doing some PR work through contacts from her old job but supplemented this by working at local estate agents to guarantee a regular income. Once the PR busi- ness took off she also set up an eBay shop selling vintage

tracts rather than permanent positions. “Generally outside of the City, there are still career PAs out there, but most have evolved into a much broader skill set – marketing and sales support, low level accounting, man management, HR & personnel are all now very often part of a PA’s day-to-day duties. However, we are seeing an increase in the number of compa- nies offering contracts. This will inevitably cre- ate a local workforce of ‘portfolio’ PAs in the future.” Her findings seem to be supported by a recent report

by the CBI which said that our concepts of employment are going to have to change as organisations start to rely on a smaller core workforce supported by a larger team of temporary or contract workers. In fact, around 35 per cent of companies surveyed by the CBI recently had embraced more flexible working, including tele-working, as a way of getting through the recession. Dr Barrie Hopson, a self-confessed serial portfolio

careerist, has recently co-written a book with Katie Ledger, And What Do You Do?: 10 Steps to Creating a Portfolio Career. He reckons there are over one million portfolio workers in the UK and they have a lot to offer

When two jobs are

clothing. “It was scary at first but now I find I have so much variety to my day and also I am really pleased I can feed one of my passions with the eBay shop, plus it’s been great to be able to transfer my marketing skills to some- thing that I care about.” This sea change in working life was predicted back in the early nineties by management guru Charles Handy, who said that in the not too distant future instead of one job people will have multiple careers on the go. Mobile technology has certainly aided and abetted this transfor- mation, allowing us to work from any location we please. These days it doesn’t have to be a problem if you are away from your desk for any length of time – as long as you are contactable. So if you are a PA at a career crossroads, is this some- thing that could work for you? Clair Bush who is Commercial Marketing Manager at recruitment agency Huntress Group, certainly seems to think so. She says that PAs are definitely taking a more flexible approach to work, looking at reducing salaries and considering con-

40 » www.executivepa.com » Aug/Sept 2010

employers in the current job market. “Portfolio workers typically are self motivated, self starters and reliable. They have to be, as they will not survive unless they are excellent time managers and organisers,” he says. When Hopson outlines some of the key skills needed for a portfolio worker, the list is not dissimilar to one you would use to describe any entrepreneur. According to Hopson, a portfolio worker will probably need to be a risk-taker, be assertive, self-directed and be comfortable being their own boss. They should not be hung up on financial security, they should be a networker and mar- keter, someone who can work to deadlines and who learns from their mistakes. You also need to be a self- starter and preferably not a perfectionist. Quite a long list then – still think it’s for you? Then visit the website which has an even more thorough checklist taken from the book which aims to help you discover whether this really is a realistic career path (www.portfoliocareers.net). Being a committed portfolio worker himself Hopson is keen to shout about the many benefits of this way of