The Guardian

London

Job-hopping and career-switching will become the norm in the future, says a new study.

And the secretarial sector will be one of the most popular choices

If you are the kind of person who wants to work for a small charity one moment, then fancies doing something completely different for a huge business the next, the future is on your side. According to new research, serial job-hopping — and even career-hopping — is fast becoming commonplace.

“Technology will play a key role, as the development of online education means people can re-train for a new career while holding down their current job,” says Michael Osbaldeston, spokesperson for City & Guilds, British vocational awards body.

The growing number of redundancies will also be significant, he says. Whereas in the past, the phenomenon was uncommon, it is no longer unheard of for people still in their 20s to have been made redundant several times. For some individuals, this will mean job and career changes are forced upon them. Others, in a bid to gain some security and control over their working lives, will opt to turn their hand to a series of different roles, broadening their skills along the way.

Katy Nicholson, spokeswoman for Reed Employment, believes the secretarial sector is one that people are increasingly likely to move into, after other careers, despite the predictions throughout the 90s that the secretarial role was doomed. “It has become clear,” she says, “that while the role has changed, it is becoming more in demand.”Another reason why people may opt to become secretaries midway through their working lives is that the skills required — from IT to managerial — can be learned in other careers.

Rachel Angermayer, 39, who works for Kelly Services, knows this all too well. “Having worked my way up the career ladder in marketing to reach senior management level, I decided to give it up completely five years ago and move into the secretarial sector,” she says. “The catalyst was the fact that I’d been made redundant four times and so it was becoming increasingly risky. I chose the secretarial route for several reasons. One, I knew I already had the skills to do it. Second, I liked the idea of supporting people and third, I found there were plenty of opportunities for managerial positions.”Alexis Hallam, senior occupational psychologist at Career Analysts Ltd, says that while people seeking career guidance used to be near the start of their working lives, she increasingly has people in their 40s, 50s and even 60s coming to her for advice.

“They realise they’ll have to work for a lot longer than they would have done in the past, but they are no longer prepared to tolerate the downside of work,” she says. “They want to work in a field, and for a company, that doesn’t mismatch their values and very often this means a complete career change that may happen more than once in their lives.”Osbaldeston explains: “A job for life has long gone and in the future it will be commonplace for a professional such as an architect to hold down a job as, say, a chef, at the same time. This won’t be considered as moonlighting but simply pursuing two careers simultaneously.”

Nicholson is already seeing this kind of parallel pursuit in the secretarial market. “One example that immediately springs to mind is a woman on our books who works as a highly paid secretary through Reed in the winter months and as a gardener in the summer.” Other clients have part-time secretarial jobs throughout the year, alongside another career — or work at least some of the time from home as freelance secretaries.

Consider the rise of virtual assistants which, during the past few years, has really taken off. The VA does what a PA does, but from home, via a mouse, phone and fax and for a range of clients. In many instances, it is a full-time job, but for others, it is a nice part-time earner alongside a staff job.

Not everyone agrees with these predictions, however.

David Coats, deputy director of research at the Work Foundation, believes it is “futurist speculation that shouldn’t be taken too seriously. There is nothing in the recent past,” he says, “that suggests there is going to be dramatic change in working patterns. In fact, the average job tenure is the same as it was 15 years ago.”But City & Guilds is adamant. The trend for job and career diversity is growing considerably, insists director general Chris Humphries, who believes it is in employees’ interests to accept it. “Companies will start to judge potential employees on their transferable skills rather than just their sector experience,” he says. “As a result, it will become increasingly important for individuals to extend their skills so that they can compete with other candidates.”Recruitment consultancy Adecco is equally convinced, particularly when it comes to support staff. Operations director Tricia Phillips says, “Our own research with the London Business School shows that tomorrow’s secretarial labour market will be a different animal from that of today’s.”