The Non-Linear Career Path Is Now Normal in Australia – How to Own Yours Based on Your Personality

There’s a story a lot of us grew up with about how a career is supposed to go. You study something. You get a graduate role in that thing. You work your way up through the ranks of that thing, accumulating experience and seniority like points in a video game, until eventually you are a very experienced, very senior person in that thing. Straight line. One direction. Forward.

If your career has looked nothing like that – welcome to the majority.

The non-linear career path isn’t a consolation prize anymore. It’s not something you have to apologise for in interviews or carefully reframe on your resume so nobody notices you changed direction twice in five years. It has quietly become the norm in the Australian and New Zealand job markets, and increasingly, it’s being recognised by smart employers as a genuine signal of capability rather than a red flag.

But here’s where a lot of people get stuck: knowing your winding path is “okay now” is very different from knowing how to own it. How to talk about it with confidence. How to connect the dots in a way that makes sense to a hiring manager who’s looking at your resume and doing the mental maths. How to keep moving forward rather than feeling like you’re perpetually starting over.

And unsurprisingly – given everything I bang on about – how you navigate that depends a lot on your personality type.

Why the Squiggly Career Is Having Its Moment

Before we get into the DOPE angle, let’s just acknowledge why this shift is happening, because it’s not accidental.

A few things have converged. Entire industries have been restructured by technology faster than any individual could have predicted when they chose their degree at eighteen. The pandemic reshuffled people’s priorities in ways that sent many of them into completely different fields – healthcare workers into consulting, hospitality professionals into operations, teachers into corporate training. The rise of side hustles, freelance work, and portfolio careers has normalised the idea that your income – and your professional identity – doesn’t have to come from a single source or a single linear trajectory.

And crucially, Australian and New Zealand employers are catching up to what this actually means. The candidate who’s worked in three different industries isn’t scattered – they’ve built cross-pollinated skills that a purely linear career simply can’t produce. The person who took two years off to run their own small business and came back to employment has a completely different relationship to commercial risk, customer needs, and problem-solving under pressure than someone who never stepped outside an organisational structure.

The question isn’t whether your non-linear path has value. It does. The question is whether you know how to articulate that value – and whether your approach to doing so is actually working with your natural strengths or quietly fighting against them.

Eagles: Pivot With Purpose (and Make Sure Everyone Knows Why)

Eagles are actually reasonably well-suited to non-linear careers, because Eagles tend to move towards opportunity rather than waiting for a pre-approved path to present itself. An Eagle who spots that their industry is shrinking, or that their skills would generate more impact and reward in a different context, will make that call and move. They’re not usually paralysed by the fear of how it looks.

The challenge for Eagles with a non-linear history isn’t usually confidence – it’s narrative. Eagles can sometimes be so focused on the next thing that they haven’t done the retrospective work of connecting their previous moves into a coherent story. And without that story, a resume that spans multiple industries or roles can look like restlessness rather than strategic agility.

The Eagle’s move here is to build what I’d call a mission thread – a single clear line that connects every pivot, even the unexpected ones. Not “I changed because I got bored” (even if that’s partly true) but “I’ve consistently moved towards environments where I could have the most direct impact on outcomes.” That framing is accurate for most Eagles, and it lands very differently with a hiring manager than a series of apparently disconnected moves.

Eagles should also lean into the leadership dimensions of their non-linear experience. Every industry they’ve worked in, every team they’ve led or influenced, every commercial outcome they’ve contributed to across those different contexts is evidence of adaptability at a senior level – which is exactly what organisations are desperately looking for right now.

Owls: Your Depth Is Your Differentiator – In Every Chapter

For an Owl, a non-linear career can feel genuinely uncomfortable. Owls tend to build their professional identity around expertise – going deep in a domain, becoming the person who really knows something, earning credibility through mastery rather than breadth. When circumstances push them into a career change, it can feel like starting from scratch in a way that’s particularly disorienting for someone who values depth.

Here’s the reframe that I think genuinely helps: the Owl’s process is transferable even when the subject matter isn’t.

An Owl who spent a decade in scientific research and pivoted into data analysis didn’t lose their decade. They brought their rigour, their scepticism, their ability to design a proper experiment and stress-test a conclusion, their comfort with complexity – into a new domain. An Owl who moved from engineering into project management didn’t abandon their technical foundation. They brought an unusually precise, systematic approach to a role that many people tackle more intuitively.

The key for Owls in presenting a non-linear history is to articulate the methodology they carry across contexts – not just the content knowledge. “I am someone who approaches problems systematically, with high attention to detail and a strong bias towards evidence” is a statement that describes an Owl across industries. That’s what a hiring manager in a new field actually needs to hear.

Owls should also give themselves credit for the courage it takes to pivot when you’re someone who values mastery. It’s genuinely harder for an Owl to change direction than it is for some other types, because the cost of “starting over” feels higher. The fact that they did it anyway – and probably did it with characteristic thoroughness once they committed – is worth naming.

Peacocks: You’re a Natural at Reinvention. Now Add the Substance.

Peacocks, genuinely, were built for the squiggly career era. The ability to walk into a new room and quickly build rapport, to read what a new environment needs and position yourself accordingly, to make a strong first impression that buys you time to learn the rest – these are natural Peacock abilities, and they’re enormously useful when you’re navigating career transitions.

Peacocks also tend to collect experiences enthusiastically – the side project that turned into a business, the volunteer role that became a professional credential, the hobby that opened a door into a new field. A Peacock’s resume is often interesting in a way that creates genuine conversation in an interview, rather than blending into the stack of conventional linear histories.

The challenge for Peacocks is making sure the substance underneath the shine is there – and visible. Hiring managers who are initially charmed by a Peacock’s energy and breadth will eventually ask the follow-up question: “But what have you actually built? What did you leave behind that lasted?” The Peacock who can answer that question with specifics – outcomes, numbers, things that continued to exist after they moved on – is the one who converts that initial interest into an actual offer.

The other move for Peacocks is to be selective about which parts of their squiggly path they lead with. Not every experience needs to be on the resume or in the interview story. The Peacock instinct to share everything because it’s all interesting to them can sometimes overwhelm a hiring manager who just needs to understand one clear thing: can this person do the job I’m hiring for, and will they bring something distinctive to it? Edit with that question in mind.

Doves: Your Non-Linear Path Probably Has a Very Human Reason – Own It

Doves are often the type most likely to feel genuinely apologetic about a non-linear career, and I want to address that directly.

Doves pivot for deeply human reasons – caring for a family member, following a partner to a new city, leaving a toxic workplace because the environment was damaging their wellbeing, pivoting into a sector that felt more aligned with their values. These are not weaknesses. They are evidence of someone who takes their commitments – to people, to their own integrity, to things that matter beyond a pay cheque – seriously.

The Dove’s challenge is learning to present those human pivots in a way that highlights the values they demonstrate, rather than softening them into near-invisibility out of worry about judgement. You don’t need to bare your soul in a job interview. But “I moved into aged care because I wanted to work somewhere I could see the human impact of what I do directly” is not a liability – it’s a statement of purpose that a lot of employers will find genuinely compelling.

Doves also tend to underestimate how much relational skill they’ve built across different contexts. Working in different industries, different team structures, different organisational cultures – the Dove has usually become very good at reading rooms, adapting their communication, and building trust quickly with a wide range of people. That is a genuinely rare skill set in the Australian job market right now, particularly as organisations grapple with rapid change and the need for leaders who can bring people along rather than just direct them.

The move for Doves is to gather evidence. Think through every role in your non-linear history and identify one concrete example of how you built trust, improved a relationship, supported someone through a difficult situation, or held a team together. Those examples, told specifically and confidently, are your strongest interview material – and they’re the things your Eagle and Owl competitors are very unlikely to have in the same form.

The Universal Skill Every Non-Linear Career Builds

Regardless of your DOPE type, there’s something that everyone with a non-linear career history has developed that’s genuinely hard to manufacture: the ability to start.

Linear career people get very good at operating within established structures. Non-linear career people get very good at figuring out new environments – fast. Learning the unwritten rules. Identifying who actually makes decisions. Finding where they can add value before they’ve built up a track record. Getting things done without the full support structure that comes with tenure.

In a market where organisations are changing faster than anyone expected – restructuring, adopting new technologies, entering new markets – the person who knows how to orient quickly in a new environment is not a risk. They’re an asset.

The job is to make sure that asset is visible. And that starts with understanding what you’re actually bringing, knowing how to tell that story clearly and confidently, and recognising that your DOPE type gives you a unique angle on how to do both of those things well.

One More Thing Before You Head Off

If you haven’t yet explored your DOPE personality type, it’s worth doing before your next career conversation – whether that’s an interview, a performance review, or just your own quiet reflection about where you’re headed and why.

The free DOPE Bird Personality Assessment at richardstep.com takes about five to ten minutes and gives you a genuinely useful framework for understanding your natural strengths, your blind spots, and the contexts where you’re most likely to thrive. If you want to explore further, the full library of self-tests at richardstep.com is worth a look too.

Your career path doesn’t have to be straight to be strong. It just has to be yours – understood, articulated, and owned.

So – how many chapters has your career had so far, and which one taught you the most unexpected thing?

Ready to understand how your personality shapes your career story? Take the free DOPE Bird Personality Assessment here.