You Might Want a Kaleidoscope Career

TLDR: Today many of us will have a "Kaleidoscope Career." That means applying a set of strengths and experiences to what might be widely different positions. Defining, talking about and promoting our Kaleidoscope Career is a tool for career success!

This blog is Part 2 of my conversation with Helen Jonsen. Links to part 1 and other content below.

Susan: Helen, you're launching a podcast called Kaleidoscope Career. I so resonated with the concept when we touched on it a few months ago.

Please give us an insight into why women should be thinking about a kaleidoscope career.

Helen: I love talking about this, Susan, thank you for this opportunity. Let's first think about what is a kaleidoscope. In a kaleidoscope, there is a primary set of glass that's colored in many different colors. But what makes it so brilliant is when you tumble the lens and you change it, the images change and no two are alike.

But nothing inside that kaleidoscope has fundamentally changed. It's still all of the same colors.

Well, that's true of each and every one of us. We have fundamental skills, talents, passions, interests that are always a part of us. It's how we change them and move them around and use them in different opportunities that builds a kaleidoscope career.

We're in the middle of huge business disruption again. First, we were disrupted by the pandemic. The pandemic hit when technology was just at a point to allow us all to do what we're doing now. To have full broadband, to speak to each other on video constantly, to work remotely more easily.

And now the next big disruption is the maturation of AI that's going to change the way many people work. It's also brought on a reflection of how people want to work. How many people do not want to be in an office 40 hours a week when they don't have to? What kind of hours are being demanded of people in service industries and the kind of work, like hospitals or broadcasting, where people need to be available for those shifts the same time as everyone else.

With that disruption, people's careers will be changing. People will make decisions to do things a little differently. People will take shorter assignments. They will take a job for a year and decide it doesn't work for them and move on to something else.

There was a time when a resume needed to be perfectly linear. You got out of school. You got a job. Maybe you stayed with that company. Maybe you moved up a few ranks. Maybe you moved to another company.

But never ever did you want anything that was only a year long, or a short project, or even a gap in your life whether you needed to take time off for family or for yourself or for health reasons.

You didn't want to see that on a resume. 

That has changed. But there have been people with kaleidoscope careers for years, myself included, who have found a way to bring their skills through different types of work.

For different reasons at different times in their lives, but their skill set is the same, their passions are the same, and everything they've done has added to their bank of experience and knowledge and skill building.

And that's something we need to recognize in ourselves. If our resumes are not linear, then how do we talk about that through line? What are those skills that we happily and want to bring to the table?

I say my career is built on that of being a writer, a speaker, a producer,  an organizer, with management experience and entrepreneurial experience.

Those things are fundamental and I can morph them and change them in a lot of different ways.

They've taken me from being a television reporter to being an executive producer,  from being a entrepreneur with my husband running a production business for news as well as corporations to going back and learning more  when the digital world became more obvious  I joined Forbes.com and then stayed in digital learning.

I was willing to keep learning all of the pieces that were part of digital publishing whether it was email or social media or other new things that were happening But they were still based on the fact that I was a writer, a journalist, an organizer, and a producer.

And even later, I took it into public service, where I served as the head of public information for a district attorney, and then for head of public affairs for the New York City Economic Development Corporation for a time.  Because it tapped the same skills that can be used in many different ways. 

We need to talk about those changes proudly and explain them without just saying, well, that's a different job title. That looks like a job change. That looks like a career change. No, it's not. It's one full career.  

And I think people need to be proud of saying there's a second part to that, but I want to make sure I'm conveying this so you understand the positive positioning.

Susan: Yes, 100%. Your advice (and your examples that illustrates it) is to draw the through lines that are skill-based, and to do that with pride.

And to think about how whatever new position you're moving into or applying for will benefit from the strengths that are part of your through line and how important it is to do that without feeling embarrassed that we don't fit the old. mold. Instead we should be feeling strong and grounded in the fact that we have that through line that will take us into places that we might never have thought about before.

Helen: And these newer generations, Gen Z, Gen X, they will have had many business disruptions, work disruptions. I think there are some numbers that say they will have seven different careers. But I don't think they should be thought of as different careers. I think there are different opportunities that people seize. And I do believe, talking about kaleidoscope careers,  as I have been doing and you're allowing me to do, we can help recruiters and hiring managers and companies see that what they're looking at on paper is not the clarity they need to complete someone's story.

And people need to own their own story, to learn the stories that they want to share about their story. Those remarkable skills that they have and I'll bring them to the table.  

Susan: Right. I wrote a blog titled "Your your strengths don't matter."

What I'm about to say comes in the context of that blog.  The drawing through of strengths is absolutely crucial. Beyond that, it's important to be able to make the case for how your strengths help you achieve important outcomes in each and every endeavor.

Now, you may not have to talk about each and every endeavor in an interview, but you have to be prepared in case you are asked to do that.  

Helen: Yes, that's absolutely right. And there are lots of stories out there of  people feeling like the definition of their most recent role doesn't fit the next thing.  And they either will be afraid to apply for this other position that they think really is a good fit for them, because they're afraid someone won't see that.

And we see that often in, in jobs and work. There's an interesting mis-step in the nonprofit world sometimes. When they're hiring executives, candidates come to the table with a lot of different skills from corporate world.

In some cases, they may have business development skills. In some cases, they have leadership skills. In some cases, they're terrific speakers and leaders who can get a crowd moving and have people believe in their mission. Often, a headhunter recruiter will ask one question that will sink that candidacy. They will ask, "When was the last time you got a 2 million grant? Or a $5 million grant."

Well, a corporate person or even an entrepreneur may never have applied for a grant, right? That's not fair. That's not specific to them, but their skill set is in business development.  Their skill set is in meeting people and closing a deal. This really is the same thing.

It doesn't have to be the only thing a person does. If the person is  applying for head of development, it may be slightly different. But if you're looking for an executive director, someone overall, to bring that organization forward. Then that one thing that doesn't sound like the other things should not scuttle that deal.

And often you see that because you're not thinking about the real skill set the person is bringing to the table.

Susan: Right. So to wrap up Part 2, I want to check on what I hear is the summary.

• It's crucial for us as we navigate our careers - especially if they are not turning out to be linear - to identify the strengths that get pulled through or have been pulled through all of our kaleidoscope career.
• It's equally important for hiring managers to realize that this is the era of kaleidoscope careers and to develop a skill set to identify the strengths the candidates bring when they look like they are outside of the old models.

Additional Resources

Part 1 with Helen: From Girl Talk to Woman Talk - 3 Shifts to Command Respect

Get Helen's newsletter to get the link to  Helen's upcoming Kaleidoscope Career podcast

About Helen Jonsen

Helen’s kaleidoscope career offers decades of experience from newsrooms to corporate boardrooms, from startups to established publishers, from nonprofits to government agencies. She has been an entrepreneur and executive at the confluence of digital media and business disruption.

As a multi-platform journalist, media coach and media relations pro, writer and trainer, Helen has been a strategic business and editorial advisor to executives and entrepreneurs, media networks, nonprofits, government agencies and corporations.

Storytelling is in Helen’s DNA and at the heart of everything she creates. As a veteran journalist, Helen covered breaking news and financial/business news, long-format feature news, and other coverage for national and international television networks and online media. She has been a contributor to a variety of publications and the author of several books.

In recent years, Helen took her skills to public service serving the City of New York and Westchester County working closely with elected and appointed leaders on crisis management, strategic and executive communications, and thought leadership.

Currently, she is the founder and chief storyteller at helen jonsen media, a boutique consulting firm, based in the Hudson Valley.



Helen is known as a public speaker on the craft of communication, strengthening advocacy, resiliency in the face of life’s challenges, life-work balance, leadership and the advancement of women. She has moderated and organized panels for leading conferences including Forbes Women’s Summits, Working Mother Best Companies and the Swedish-American Executive Women’s conferences in the US and Stockholm. She has been called upon to emcee events for nonprofit corporate/fundraising, and industry associations.