Moonlighting.in describes itself as “an informal community-operated members’ house, supporting the diverse endeavours of its members with separate work and living space, for ad-hoc short or longer term use.” It has “a huge villa next to Greater Kailash 1 in South Delhi, hotdesks for working on your laptop” and a chef who “serves delicious meals for all members”. The meal costs Rs 90 but you have to cough up another Rs 100 for non-vegetarian fare. The best accommodation will set you back Rs 27,000 a month plus costs.

Who are the people who frequent this place? According to a survey carried out by Moonlighting.in, 23 per cent are freelancers, 22 per cent entrepreneurs, 17 per cent students and 16 per cent who are categorised as “employed”. Bringing up the rear are “undefinable” and “wanderer” with 2 per cent each.

Freelancers may be the largest single category, but if you look closely at their composition, a new description may be warranted. A freelancer tends to work with a few companies and in a particular domain. The new kid on the block is a portfolio careerist.

What sort of specimen is this? It’s a freelancer or a moonlighter who works in different sectors. According to Portfolio Careers — a portal dedicated to encouraging and supporting portfolio careerists — “a portfolio career is a collection of multiple activities, not necessarily all paid jobs, which together create a whole that can be much more fulfilling and rewarding than traditional full-time employment. A successful portfolio can consist of a number of part-time jobs such as part-time employment, interim or temporary jobs, freelancing, contract positions, self-employment and non-executive positions.”

A portfolio careerist is sometimes known as a slasher because of the slashes in his job title — butcher/baker/candlestick maker, for instance. The key is that these careers should be at the same time. In that sense it is different from an encore career in which a person takes up a second career after his retirement.

Is a portfolio career only for the polymaths? Do you need to be a Leonardo da Vinci — painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer?

If you want such as array of activities, you must be exceptional. But in today’s world, everybody is multitasking. And that is the first step to becoming a portfolio careerist. It isn’t as uncommon as you may think. “The portfolio life is the answer to today’s changing world of work,” says the bestselling Building a Portfolio Career: How to Create a Portfolio of Roles to Suit Your Work and Life. “It lets you take control.”

Ten Steps to Creating a Portfolio Career is, as the name suggests, a How-to guide. It says that a portfolio careerist is in a state of “permanent beta”. Experience is one end of the work spectrum; on the other side is enthusiasm — discovering something new every day.

Writing in The Telegraph, UK, Rachel Brushfield, director at Energise – The Talent Liberation Company, gives several reasons for the growth in portfolio careers. Among them:

People aren’t one-dimensional and fit in a neat box, they have different skills and interests.

The job for life is dead as a concept. A portfolio career helps you create your career as you want it — by design.

A current shortage of fulltime jobs has led to more part-time jobs, creating a financial shortfall that needs to be filled.

“Financial shortfall” is the key when you look at the portfolio career scenario in India. Traditionally, when families migrated from the villages to the cities, one person in the joint family got a job. The rest just latched on to him as the provider. The earnings from one job were never enough. So the “head of the family” had to take up portfolio careers. In due course, other family members found gainful employment. But some of them too took up portfolio careers — a stock-taker in a factory by day became a waiter at night. Nuclear families may have come in today, but the Indian mindset is very receptive to portfolio careers. What the West calls the future of work is actually the past of work in India.

DABBLER’S DELIGHT

A portfolio career is good for you if you:

• Value variety, independence, and the chance to learn new things.
• Are a self-starter and manage your time well.
• Wish to make the most of your strengths and the skills you enjoy using.
• Enjoy change and challenge.
• Are adaptable and organised.

Source: careerchangepathways.com