The Sixteen Career Types

The four ends of the first four aspects combine in sixteen ways, and each combination is a career type with its own name. So you can say in one or two words what kind of career you have had, or what kind would suit you, and the code follows the name for when you need to be exact.

Each type is a deliberate extreme, with the career at the far end of all four aspects. Real careers sit somewhere between the ends, so a real career is nearer to one type than to the others rather than a copy of it. That is also why the result of the test shows how close you are on each aspect, and not only which type you are nearest.

The sixteen fall into four families by their first two letters. How different the roles are and how different the environments are decide what a career is like from one year to the next, while depth and concurrency decide how it is held. So the four families are the four combinations of those two aspects, and the four types within each family differ by the other two.

FRThe Specialists: similar roles in similar environments (FR)

If your career is a Specialist's, you do one kind of work in one environment, often for your whole working life. Your know-how builds on itself, because you leave nothing behind when you move. Your colleagues, the rules and the standards stay familiar, so all your effort goes into the work itself. The risk is concentration, because you have a lot riding on one kind of work in one place.

Type	In short	Why the name
The Perennial (FRCS)FRCS	In shortSimilar roles, similar environments, competent, one at a time	Why the nameA perennial is a plant that comes back in the same spot every year. This career does the same, with one kind of work in one environment, done reliably well, year after year.
The Shepherd (FRCP)FRCP	In shortSimilar roles, similar environments, competent, several at once	Why the nameA shepherd looks after a whole flock at once, each animal much like the others, and keeps every one of them fed and safe. This career tends several similar commitments at the same time, in one environment, and keeps all of them in good order.
The Diver (FRMS)FRMS	In shortSimilar roles, similar environments, towards mastery, one at a time	Why the nameA diver goes down in one spot, and from there the only way on is deeper. This career stays with one craft in one environment and keeps raising its standard for decades.
The Banyan (FRMP)FRMP	In shortSimilar roles, similar environments, towards mastery, several at once	Why the nameThe banyan is a fig tree that grows new trunks down from its branches, so that one tree becomes a small grove without moving. This career runs one deep craft through several commitments at once, all in one environment.

VRThe Locals: very different roles in similar environments (VR)

If your career is a Local's, you change the work and keep the environment. Over the years you become the person in your organisation or field who has done the other jobs, and who knows the place from every angle. Every new role makes you a beginner again, but the people and the rules around you are ones you already know. The risk is that your environment changes or disappears, and takes much of your career's value with it.

Type	In short	Why the name
The Allrounder (VRCS)VRCS	In shortVery different roles, similar environments, competent, one at a time	Why the nameIn cricket, an allrounder can both bat and bowl, and do each well enough to earn a place. This career takes on very different roles in one environment, one after another, and is solidly good at each.
The Keystone (VRCP)VRCP	In shortVery different roles, similar environments, competent, several at once	Why the nameA keystone is the wedge-shaped stone at the top of an arch that locks the other stones in place. This career holds several very different roles at once in one environment, and the place comes to rely on it to hold them together.
The Steward (VRMS)VRMS	In shortVery different roles, similar environments, towards mastery in at least one, one at a time	Why the nameA steward looks after a place on behalf of others and comes to know every part of it. This career stays in one environment, takes on very different roles in it one at a time, and takes at least one of them to mastery.
The Octopus (VRMP)VRMP	In shortVery different roles, similar environments, towards mastery in at least one, several at once	Why the nameAn octopus has one body and eight arms, and each arm can do something different at the same moment. This career holds several very different roles at once, in one environment, and takes at least one of them deep.

FWThe Voyagers: similar roles in very different environments (FW)

If your career is a Voyager's, you keep the work and change the environment. Your craft travels with you, and each new setting teaches you rules, habits and people you would not have met at home. That makes you good at seeing what one environment can learn from another. The cost is that every move means making a place among strangers again, however good you are at the work.

Type	In short	Why the name
The Nomad (FWCS)FWCS	In shortSimilar roles, very different environments, competent, one at a time	Why the nameA nomad moves from place to place instead of settling, and lives much the same way in each. This career carries one kind of work through very different environments, one at a time.
The Amphibian (FWCP)FWCP	In shortSimilar roles, very different environments, competent, several at once	Why the nameAn amphibian lives both on land and in water. This career does one kind of work in two or more very different environments at the same time.
The Pilgrim (FWMS)FWMS	In shortSimilar roles, very different environments, towards mastery, one at a time	Why the nameA pilgrim travels a long way, through many different places, for one purpose. This career takes one craft through very different environments, one at a time, and deepens it wherever it goes.
The Pollinator (FWMP)FWMP	In shortSimilar roles, very different environments, towards mastery, several at once	Why the nameA bee carries pollen from one flower to the next, so that each of them can bear fruit. This career carries one deep craft into several very different environments at once.

VWThe Generalists: very different roles in very different environments (VW)

If your career is a Generalist's, you change both the work and the environment. You have more beginnings than any other family, and you build the widest range of know-how and contacts. That range lets you connect people and ideas that rarely meet. But breadth of both kinds is not a summit to aim for in itself. Delivering meals, serving drinks, loading lorries and tutoring maths is breadth of both kinds too, and few people envy it.

Type	In short	Why the name
The Adapter (VWCS)VWCS	In shortVery different roles, very different environments, competent, one at a time	Why the nameAn adapter makes a device work wherever it is plugged in. This career takes on very different roles in very different environments, one at a time, and gets good enough at each to do the job.
The Mender (VWCP)VWCP	In shortVery different roles, very different environments, competent, several at once	Why the nameA mender repairs whatever is brought to them, a net one day and a roof the next, well enough to put it back to use. This career holds very different roles in very different environments at the same time, and keeps each of them working.
The Reinventor (VWMS)VWMS	In shortVery different roles, very different environments, towards mastery in at least one, one at a time	Why the nameTo reinvent yourself is to become something genuinely new, rather than a variation on what you were. This career moves through very different roles in very different environments, one at a time, and takes at least one of them to mastery.
The Polymath (VWMP)VWMP	In shortVery different roles, very different environments, towards mastery in at least one, several at once	Why the nameA polymath knows several unrelated fields in depth. This career holds very different roles in very different environments at the same time, and takes at least one of them to mastery.

4.1Every type has a Self-Led and a Guided variant

The fifth letter gives every type two variants. The type says what the career contains, and the variant says where its commitments came from. So there are still sixteen types, and each one can be lived in two ways.

Mary Barra and Burt Rutan both have careers of the same type.¹1Barra and Rutan are the Steward page's Guided and Self-Led examples, recorded with their sources in the real-people register: for Rutan, RQ-ranger-vignettes, section 5. Barra joined General Motors at eighteen as a student on a work-study programme and has worked nowhere else. She went through engineering, ran a plant, led human resources and then product development, and became the company's chief executive. Every role was an offer from the company, which makes her a Guided Steward (VRMS-G).

Rutan also spent his working life in one environment, aircraft design, but he went and got every move himself. He tested aircraft for the air force, joined a small aircraft maker to learn how such a company is run, and then left to found his own design company. Later he founded a second, Scaled Composites, to build prototypes nobody had commissioned, including the first private crewed spacecraft. That makes him a Self-Led Steward (VRMS-O).

Mary BarraVRMSGGuided Steward

or

Burt RutanVRMSOSelf-Led Steward

The four letters cannot tell those two careers apart. Both took on very different roles, in one environment, one at a time, with mastery in at least one. But one was built by a company around a person it chose to keep promoting, and the other by a person who kept building companies around his own ideas. That difference is what the fifth letter records.

People already have words for careers, such as specialist, generalist and portfolio career. None of the sixteen types is named after one of them, because each of those words describes only part of a career, usually how different the roles are or how deep one of them goes. So the table shows what each familiar word means in the terms of this typology, and which types it can point to.