Welcome to a new era of work: The portfolio career

A portfolio career, which involves having different streams of income, has its pros and cons.

Anna Mackenzie said she has been self-employed for several years, trying to do a very millennial thing: Turn her side hustle into a full-time business.

But around a year and a half ago, she decided to pursue what she calls a “portfolio career.” Mackenzie maintains a wide variety of gigs: She works with startups, creates content, writes a newsletter, and mentors others who are also interested in a portfolio career.

Whether it be through multiple side hustles or overemployment, the life of gig workers trying to cobble together a living isn’t new. But in a time where the meaning of work is up for grabs, more people could be tempted by a career putting together various threads under their own control.

Mackenzie’s gigs all require similar skills: communication, writing, and strategy, but the final product for each offering is very different.

“I think when you’re in a full-time job or when you’re in a full-time business, as a full-time founder, you pour all of your energy and love and time and effort into one focus, one thing,” Mackenzie told Business Insider. “I’m a generalist. I really like variety, and I really wanted to do a lot of different things that tapped into my different strengths and interests.”

Anna Mackenzie has a portfolio career and likes the variety of gigs she can do with this type of work. 

Janel Abrahami, who also has a portfolio career, doesn’t see workers going back to how work was before the pandemic.

“Now that folks have, in some cases, been forced to figure out different ways of working or have chosen that proactively, it’s just shown that we can earn a lot more, we can be a lot more satisfied, and we can create bigger impact for ourselves by divesting out of one full-time job,” Abrahami, who lives in New Jersey, said.

Janel Abrahami likes that a portfolio career allows her to play to her strengths. 

Mackenzie, who lives in Australia, said in a TikTok video that “the people who are going to thrive in this new economy are not the people who’ve got 9-to-5s. They’re not the people who are climbing the corporate ladder.”

Instead, she said it will be those with “multiple income streams, clients, projects, products, and services” going simultaneously that involve “their unique set of skills and experience.”

Slowing demand for full-time workers and declining wage growth could push more people into putting together a variety of gigs for themselves.

Many workers have described to Business Insider how they’ve expanded their income streams beyond the corporate grind. Some people may take on a freelance job or work more than one job to kick off their portfolio career. Whether self-employed or employed by a company, people can earn money from multiple sources, such as through making social media content, making user-generated content, and writing gigs.

“When you decentralize everything from one 9-to-5 and build a portfolio career, you protect yourself from the emotional and financial shock if and when business needs change at your 9-to-5,” Abrahami said in a TikTok video.

How to start your portfolio career

Those looking to try out a portfolio career have to be careful if they’re still working a day job. Abrahami said people should first read their employee handbook to review noncompete agreements and moonlighting clauses.

“​​Once that’s all clear and you know that adding more work on top of your 9-to-5 is kosher, I strongly advise anyone who’s interested in expanding their career to include more than one job into a portfolio is to start one thing at a time,” she said. “The easiest place to start is to think about what you already do and are already an expert in and comes naturally to you.”

Abrahami said consulting, coaching, courses, and creating a paid community are ways to get started and monetize what you already know.

“I think the interesting thing about a portfolio career is that there are an infinite number of ways that it can be structured, and I think it really depends on the individual, what they’re hoping to achieve, how much stability they want, what their risk appetite is,” Mackenzie said.

Building a portfolio of different kinds of gigs could take time.

“It’s very unlikely that you’ll set off on your portfolio career and add another job to your portfolio as a freelancer or a consultant and then you’ll land another gig in two days after announcing it,” Abrahami said. “It goes through a process, and it often takes a lot longer than you would expect, so you need to have a comfortable financial runway to see you through that.”

If you’re planning to build a portfolio career without having a full-time job, networking could be helpful before quitting.

“Building your network is something that takes a lot of time,” Mackenzie said, adding, “really expanding the network and making really good connections and building relationships within their sphere or within their space is something that you can do while you have a full-time job.”

The pros and cons of a portfolio career

Mackenzie and Abrahami both think a portfolio career isn’t for everyone.

“The person who would thrive with a portfolio career is naturally proactive, is excited about raising their hand for opportunities and pitching themself, is inspired and creatively energized by having a few things going on at once, and is a person who finds it really difficult or boring to describe themselves in one job title,” Abrahami said.

Mackenzie finds flexibility, work freedom, and earning potential as pros of a portfolio career.

“When you work for yourself in a portfolio career structure, you’re constantly selling, and you’re constantly negotiating deals and projects and so forth,” Mackenzie said. “Your earning capacity is really infinite, particularly if you start to productize your knowledge and build scalable income that way.”

Another pro could be being able to focus on your strengths. Abrahami said her favorite part of building a portfolio career is “finally” being able to play to her strengths, like public speaking, because she can decide what jobs she pursues. Abrahami is a career coach and a career education strategist for universities, MBA programs, and professional associations. She also creates social media content, works with brands, has a newsletter, and does public speaking opportunities.

“In my full-time, corporate jobs, yes, I had roles where they played to my strengths, but I was often really catching up on my opportunities for growth, and there was never one role where I was like, ‘I’m a natural for this,'” Abrahami said.

Still, a portfolio career has its cons, such as being overwhelmed by too much happening.

“Portfolio careers give us much more flexibility if we choose that, but it also is a double-edged sword because if you add so many jobs and part-time gigs and freelance opportunities to your portfolio career, you can just as easily overwhelm yourself and be working a lot harder and a lot longer than you would in one 9-to-5,” Abrahami said.

Mackenzie finds having less financial stability and less work security compared to a full-time role is a risk of a portfolio career and that loneliness could be another con.

“Typically, people are working by themselves, or they’re dipping in and out of teams and dipping in and out of the projects,” Mackenzie said. “I think that’s one of the things that I see people in this space struggle with is this lack of camaraderie and community. And it just means that you have to intentionally create that for yourself, whether you join established communities or you go to a coworking space.”