Career Risk Portfolio

Your career contains a mix of risks that can be analyzed and diversified. Categories include: (1) industry risk—your sector declines; (2) company risk—your employer fails; (3) role risk—your function is automated; (4) skill risk—your expertise becomes commoditized; (5) relationship risk—over-indexed on a single patron or network; (6) geographic risk—your location's economy deteriorates; (7) health risk—loss of ability to perform your work type. Most professionals unconsciously concentrate risk: one company, one industry, one city, one skill set. Diversification includes building cross-industry skills, external networks, location-independent income, and physical resilience.

When to use it

During annual career planning, when sensing instability in your industry, when evaluating whether to double down or diversify, or when career security anxiety would benefit from systematic analysis rather than worry.

How it can help

Conduct a career risk audit: where are you concentrated? If your employer, industry, skills, and network are all in one sector, you have dangerous concentration risk. Practically: (1) ensure skills transfer across at least two industries, (2) maintain relationships outside your current company, (3) build at least one independent income stream, (4) keep 6-12 months expenses as career insurance. For knowledge workers in AI-exposed fields, this is urgently relevant: if AI can do your job, what's your hedge?