From ‘a calling’ to a lifelong career: how the logic of career decisions has changed

Author: Alyona Fedko - Career counsellor, Euroguidance Ukraine

Until recently, the term career was associated with a straight trajectory: gain an education, learn a profession, and move up the career ladder until retirement. But the modern world has changed everything: professions are disappearing, industries are transforming, and career paths are becoming flexible. People no longer look for a ‘single calling’ but build dynamic life made up of different roles and opportunities.

The traditional understanding of the term career, formed in the 20th century, was based on Donald Super’s theory (Super, 1957): ‘A career is a sequence of roles that a person performs throughout their life.’ This approach relied on a stable system: education → profession → career growth → retirement.

However, in the 21st century, two key concepts emerged that radically changed how careers are viewed: the boundaryless career and the protean career.

The boundaryless career (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996) is a model without fixed boundaries.
 This model assumes increased labour mobility, where individuals are no longer tied to a single company, position, or even industry.

Careers become mobile, project-based, and networked:
• specialists can move between organisations, countries, and sectors;
• professional identity is built not on a job title, but on competencies and reputation;
• the key currency is social capital: connections, knowledge, and personal brand.

Such a career is built on relationships, flexibility, and the ability to learn rather than on stability or loyalty to an employer.

For a counsellor, this means helping clients think beyond a ‘position in a company’ and see themselves within a wider professional ecosystem rather than a hierarchy.

The protean career (Douglas Hall, 2004) is ‘protean’ — changeable and flexible, like the mythical Proteus who could shift his form.

This is an internally driven career, where the guiding point is not external markers of success (position, money, status) but one’s own values, meaning, and sense of growth.

A person may radically change their professional path several times — and each time do so consciously, guided by the question: ‘What matters to me right now?’

In a protean career, a consultant does not help someone find ‘one ideal profession’ but teaches adaptability, self-awareness, and the ability to rethink success at different stages of life.

Together these two models — boundaryless and protean — form a new paradigm of career development, centred not on stability but on flexibility, autonomy, and continuous learning.

And it is in response to these realities that the role of the career counsellor is changing — from a specialist who ‘gives answers’ to someone who helps build an internal compass in a world without clear boundaries.

According to a Deloitte study (2023), the average time spent in one job worldwide has fallen to 3–4 years, and almost 60% of professionals change their job at least once in their lives. Therefore, a consultant no longer ‘helps to find a calling’ but helps a person recognise their own flexibility, competencies, and areas for growth.

Today, a career is not about searching for one truth but about being able to see opportunities, rethink yourself, and stay flexible in times of change. The role of a consultant is to support a person in forming an internal coordinate system in a world where boundaries no longer exist.