Going “portfolio”: making sense of changing careers Available to Purchase

The demise of the traditional career is widely heralded as is its replacement by more fluid and individual career choices. This paper reports on an exploratory investigation of the transition of ex‐NHS managers from managerial careers to portfolio careers. Drawing inductively on interviews with 25 managers, the paper indicates that individuals draw on a number of permeating themes to make sense of their career given the transition they have made: the “real career”; “no going back”; “values and integrity”; “development”; and “consolidation”. The paper argues that more such research is needed to explore the diverse sense making schemes drawn on by individuals experiencing career change.