Career Glossary
The vocabulary of career decisions, defined in plain English — no jargon about jargon.
Bridge Role
A bridge role is a position in your target field that explicitly values the expertise you built in your old one — letting you change careers without resetting salary or seniority. It is the safest entry mechanism in a career change: you are paid for what you know while you grow into what you don't.
Career Crossroads
A career crossroads is a decision point where your current professional path splits into distinct alternatives — staying, changing roles, changing careers, or stepping back — and the choice will shape years, not weeks. It differs from everyday dissatisfaction in that not deciding is itself a decision.
Boreout
Boreout is chronic underchallenge at work — too little meaningful demand instead of too much — producing symptoms that look like burnout: exhaustion, cynicism and declining self-worth. Coined in European management literature, it is the quieter sibling of burnout and often goes unrecognized because the sufferer appears to have an easy job.
Career Plateau
A career plateau is an extended stretch where your role, responsibility and learning stop growing although your ambition has not — promotions stall, tasks repeat, and effort no longer changes outcomes. Plateaus are normal in every long career; the question is whether yours is structural (the role has no headroom) or self-made (you stopped asking for more).
Transferable Skills
Transferable skills are capabilities that keep their value when you change roles, industries or careers — stakeholder management, hiring, budgeting, writing, selling ideas, judgment under pressure. For most experienced professionals they make up well over half of what makes them good, which is why career changes rarely start from zero.
Informational Interview
An informational interview is a short conversation with someone working in a field, role or company you are considering — to gather first-hand reality instead of job-ad marketing. No job is asked for and none is offered; the currency is honest information about what the work is actually like.
Career Capital
Career capital is the sum of rare and valuable assets you accumulate through work — skills, reputation, relationships and credentials — that can later be exchanged for better roles, more autonomy or a successful career change. The concept reframes career planning: instead of chasing titles, you build capital that keeps its value across employers.
Golden Handcuffs
Golden handcuffs are financial arrangements — high salary, unvested stock, bonuses, pensions or perks — that make leaving a job feel impossible even when the work itself no longer fits. The term describes the trap of being paid too well to be unhappy somewhere else, and too unhappy to stay well.
Career Sponsor
A career sponsor is a senior person inside your organization who actively spends their influence on your advancement — putting your name forward for roles, defending you in promotion rounds, opening doors you cannot see. Unlike a mentor, who advises you, a sponsor advocates for you when you are not in the room.
Upskilling vs. Reskilling
Upskilling means deepening or extending skills for the career path you are already on; reskilling means learning substantially new skills to move onto a different path. The distinction decides what to learn and how much: upskilling compounds an existing position, reskilling finances a transition.
Facing one of these in real life? Your first session with a Nawaya career guide is free.