The Squiggly Career
The squiggly career: how to turn a cross-border path into an asset
A non-linear, multi-country, multilingual career reads as a risk to people who default to linear CVs. It is not. Here is how to reframe a squiggly path as the asset it actually is.
Related: 794 European finance jobs, decoded.
I did not build a straight career, and I did not build it by accident. An MSc from St Andrews, institutional finance, retail brokerage at IG Group, asset management at Allianz Global Investors, cross-border launches in Germany, and now an independent practice run as an autonomo in Madrid, across five languages. On a linear CV that looks like someone who cannot sit still. In reality it is the exact thing that makes the work possible. This is the first post in a series on navigating that kind of path on purpose.
Why the squiggly path reads as risk
The term squiggly career was popularized by Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis at Amazing If, and it names something most hiring and buying still quietly penalize: a path that moves sideways, across industries, roles, countries, and languages, rather than climbing one ladder. The reader defaults to a linear narrative, so every move looks like a restart instead of a compounding. That bias is real, and it is beatable, because it is a framing problem, not a fact about your value.
The reframe: range is the asset, not the liability
Range is only a weakness if you present it as a list of departures. Presented as a through-line, it becomes the one thing a specialist cannot offer: the ability to see a pattern because you have stood in more than one place. I can read an asset manager’s distribution problem partly because I ran retail acquisition first, and I can market across European markets because I have launched in them, in the local language. That is not a scattered CV. It is a lens. The job is to name the lens so the reader does not have to guess.
My path, as a through-line
Read as titles, that is five different things. Read as a through-line, it is one capability compounding: entering markets, in multiple languages, across the retail and institutional divide. The pattern is the point.
Reframe your squiggly move
Pick the kind of pivot you are explaining. Get the reframe and the one thing to make concrete.
How to translate it, in one line
Whether you are writing a CV, a LinkedIn headline, or a consulting pitch, the move is the same: lead with the capability, not the chronology. Not “I have done a lot of different things,” but “I enter European markets, in their own languages, across retail and institutional finance.” State the through-line, quantify the range, and let the reader see the asset instead of the zigzag. The rest of this series will get specific: translating credentials across borders, and positioning a multilingual CV in markets that default to linear narratives.
Frequently asked
What is a squiggly career?
A non-linear path that moves sideways, across industries, roles, countries, or languages, rather than up one ladder. Handled deliberately, the range becomes an asset.
How do you explain a non-linear career?
Lead with the through-line, not the titles. Name the transferable capability your moves built and the pattern you can see because you have stood in more than one place.
Is changing industries bad for your career?
Only if you present it as a series of restarts. Framed as range, it gives you a lens the incumbents lack.
How do you market a multilingual, multi-country CV?
Quantify it. Markets entered, languages worked in, regulators navigated. It is rare and hard to fake, so make it concrete.
For the longer treatment of the same argument, read how to become a technical marketer.
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