A Real-Life Portfolio Career

- I spoke with several portfolio careerists while preparing this course so I could understand the different ways things came together for different people. Everyone had such diverse and interesting stories, including Jennifer Bangoura, whose story I will share here. Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us from Malawi. - Yeah, thank you for having me. - So you and I chatted a short time ago. I know a bit about your portfolio career, but I'm curious, what prompted you to first start a portfolio career? - So my portfolio career really started accidentally over 10 years ago when I was working in a grants and finance position and I had these creative urges that I really couldn't scratch or satisfy with my nine to five job. And so I had friends who kept telling me, "You're such a good photographer. "You should take up photography. "You should write." And I paid attention and I started looking for opportunities around me. And on the photography side, I set a goal to buy a really nice camera, and then I said, "Let me make enough money in one year to pay it back." And then from that, opportunities started coming in. I had a friend, I said, "I'll do your pictures for free "if you pay for my flight to your wedding in Iceland," and got a trip to Iceland out of it. And then I was thinking as well about some of the next steps in my career, and I was seeing in a lot of job descriptions, the need to have writing samples. And it had been years since I'd finished undergrad and I didn't really have, I wasn't writing in my nine to five, so I saw an opportunity to do freelance blogging for a study abroad travel website and added that on and was writing one to two blog posts a month. So really, it was wanting to be a little bit more creative outside of my nine to five, and that's how my initial portfolio career started. - So it sounds like when you first started with your portfolio career, you were following along with that anchor job plus side hustle, but then if I recall, things changed. - Yeah. - So tell me about how things unfolded from there. - Well, what happened was really over 10 years, my husband and I had set this intention of moving back to Sub-Saharan Africa, where we had initially met when I was a Peace Corps volunteer. And I started to think about how can I have a career that's a little bit more flexible since I know we're going to go back through his work. He works in public health and I started through education and then experience, building up my own expertise to have a career. And that really, I didn't have a word for it, but now is definitely a portfolio career, where I would have multiple opportunities that are all in the same, you know, thematic space. So what happened was my husband got this job opportunity in Malawi in Southern Africa, and when we moved, I had to quit my job because I couldn't work remotely. And I started, you know, my background is in career coaching and career development. So I started putting into practice what I was coaching job seekers and students on, which is to have conversations with people, start, you know, or keep being curious and leaning into curiosities and things that I was interested in. And a conversation led me to one person, who was raising a venture capital fund, focused on African education and learning. And after a few conversations with this person, she gave me a part-time contract and then asked me if I was interested in another part-time contract with one of the companies she'd already invested in to oversee the career services for an an online American university, Nexford University. And so that was how it actually started and it feels, now it feels very natural and like organic and like, if you look at my LinkedIn profile, like, oh yeah, that makes total sense. But at the time, it really was six months of trying to figure out what is happening next and being really intentional with how I could create opportunities that didn't mean I had to put my career on the back burner, but that I could continue to, you know, move forward and grow in my own career while we also achieved a goal we'd set forth for our family, to move back to Sub-Saharan Africa. - That's amazing. I mean it's amazing also to hear how your conversations and your intentional networking really came together in a way that has today led you to what is now it sounds like a portfolio career that more aligns with the expert model because it sounds like all of your work kind of ties into that central theme of career development, learning development, is that correct? - It is, and what I, the thread that kind of goes through all of it was keeping my mind and eyes and ears open to different opportunities and paying attention to where I was really drawing energy and excitement. Because after a year of working in this, the two part-time opportunities, I started teaching in a program in an online marriage and family therapy program, teaching career development theory and techniques. And it's something that I thought, oh, how can I do that from here? You know, you start putting these constraints on what is and isn't possible. And now I'm able even from, you know, a nine, sometimes 10 hour time difference, I'm teaching for a university in California, something that I'm super passionate about. And it actually, you know, brings me so much joy and it also is still intertwined and like, aligned with my professional interests while I'm still, while I'm getting to grow that new skillset. And I think that's the thing that with my portfolio career has, it hasn't always been so strategic of, oh, I need to develop this skillset for this future opportunity. But now looking back I can see, oh, okay, the photography, videography and blogging really helped sharpen certain creative skills that then I used in different ways that I couldn't, you know, imagine for other, you know, when I was writing success stories in a future job or, you know, going to an event and someone handing me the camera because they needed extra hands. And then similarly with teaching, it was something I hadn't necessarily pinpointed as something I was interested in doing, but I'm really excited now that I can have this flexibility to explore these interests at the same time. - Isn't that amazing? I mean, I'm just, it's so exciting to hear how things come together when you are strategic about it, but it also sounds like some of it was serendipitous, which is cool too. Before we go, Jennifer, I would love to get from you any, you know, couple of bits of advice that you might have for anyone in this course, considering building their own portfolio career. - I think my biggest piece of advice for somebody is that you need to have an intention, but don't be so rigid in your vision that you shut off opportunities around you. Because sometimes people really get that tunnel vision on their three to five year plan and it's great to have a plan and we need to stay open to, whether it's conversations with people that maybe you otherwise would say no to because that's not in your lane or you're not interested. I really embrace this happenstance learning theory, which is a career development theory that I teach, but I didn't create. Where you need to, you know, put yourself out there, whether it's through volunteering, through conversations with new people, by helping somebody else, you know, climb the ladder as you're climbing. So that would be my advice and good luck. Can't wait to hear about your students' portfolio careers. - That's amazing advice, this was terrific. I loved talking with you off camera. It's even better talking with you on camera, so I appreciate your time and I think everybody in the course will really love seeing how a real life person has put together a successful portfolio career. So thank you so much. - Thank you so much for having me.