Career Constellation. Neither a Ladder nor a Jungle Gym, but My Own Shape
Since Sheryl Sandberg discussed abandoning the 'Career Ladder' for a 'Career Jungle Gym' in ⟨Lean In⟩, the perspective of viewing careers not as vertical ladders but as three-dimensional structures has become quite widespread. A ladder only goes one way. You climb up, or you fall down. A jungle gym is different. You can go sideways, diagonally, sometimes even down, but you eventually reach somewhere.
But I found the jungle gym metaphor a bit stifling too.
A jungle gym is ultimately a structure someone else built. It has bars, connectors, and predetermined paths to climb. While moving sideways is better than a ladder, it still relies on the premise that you must "cling to something." Whether ladder or jungle gym, it's about people on the structure. Step outside it? You fall.
I've fallen many times. Things I truly believed were dreams shattered into pieces; places I thought were solid fences I'd never lose crumbled. There were times, starting anew, when I faced past pains again, unable to go up or down, just standing facing a wall. Looking back, these times felt less like moving along some structure and more like marking stars one by one in the night sky.
Constellations Only Appear When Stars Are Connected
In 2019, I began writing "Finding the Shape of My Place." I wanted to organize the journey I'd taken since becoming a new employee. That piece, which started with the question, "Is a dream the same as a job, and is a job the same as work?" continued for seven years, concluding with an epilogue written in the summer of 2025.
During that time, I gave a talk under the same title at Le Musée, the lecture club I graduated from at Konkuk University. It was 2021. While explaining the path I'd walked, I said this:
> "The shape of my place isn't something forced into any existing mold; it's simply something like 'the Kim Min-seok constellation.'"
At the time, I thought it was just a fitting metaphor, but looking back, it was more than that. The constellation was actually the most accurate structure to describe my career.
Consider a constellation. Stars are scattered across the sky. Each star alone is just a dot. But if someone suggests, "What if we draw lines between this star and that star?" suddenly shapes begin to emerge. It becomes a lion, a scorpion, a fish. Looking at the same stars, the West saw Orion, while Korea saw the Three Stars. The stars themselves didn't change, but depending on which lines you draw, it becomes a completely different story.
Careers are the same. The moment you wanted to create something, the time you met a warm team, the first experience of quitting something, a single word someone offered. These are scattered stars, each on its own. Place them on a ladder and it becomes "climbing up and falling down"; place them on a jungle gym and it becomes "moving sideways and then diagonally." But place them as a constellation—it simply becomes my own shape.
So I gave it a name. Career Constellation.
Ladders, Jungle Gyms, Constellations
Here's how the three differ.
Ladders are vertical. Climbing up is success; falling down is failure. Rank, salary, title. A world with only up and down.
The jungle gym is three-dimensional. You can move sideways, diagonally. Job changes, department transfers, switching companies. Far more realistic than a ladder, but still movement within a structure. You must hold onto the bars, and connecting paths must exist.
The constellation isn't flat. Stars emerge at different times, in different contexts. The distances between stars vary, and I draw the connecting lines myself. The structure doesn't pre-exist. The stars come first; the lines are drawn later.
This difference matters because it changes where the "initiative in the story" lies. On a ladder, the initiative belongs to the ladder itself. The rungs are fixed. On a jungle gym, the initiative is half mine. I choose which rung to grab, but the rungs' positions are fixed. In a constellation, the initiative is entirely mine. Which experiences I turn into stars, which stars I connect, and thus what shape emerges—I decide it all.
There's a saying: "My career got tangled." On a ladder, that's accurate. Going sideways means you're tangled. On a jungle gym, you could say it's less tangled. Moving sideways is still movement. But in a constellation, the concept of getting tangled doesn't exist. No matter where the stars are, connecting them creates a shape.
So I tried making a constellation
Just talking about the concept felt empty, so I decided to make one myself. Inside my blog, an interactive web page where anyone can draw their own career constellation!
byminseok.com/lab/constellation/
The structure is like this. There are four themes.
The Maker — What you wanted to do, where you wanted to go. It doesn't have to be a job. Just the direction that made your heart race.
From Fence to Mat — Where you actually stayed. Whether it was a company, a club, or a city. That time is all part of your constellation.
Because You Grow Again — Have you ever fallen? No one has never fallen. That too becomes a star.
Someone's One Word — Who gave you strength? Because a single word can change your direction.
You can choose from pre-prepared options for each theme or write your own sentence. Stars appear one by one on the canvas, connecting with lines to stars of the same theme, and dotted bridges form between themes. When complete, the stars gather and sparkle at the canvas's center, accompanied by the phrase: "It's not a failure. This is your shape."
The completed constellation can be shared via URL. When sent to a friend, your constellation unfolds across their browser's night sky. Clicking a theme's legend highlights only that theme's stars and lines, dimming the rest. Hovering over a star reveals its story.
Stars twinkle against the night sky background. Hovering the mouse makes stars flicker or pull closer, and dragging moves them. A physics simulation runs, making the stars tremble slightly, giving them a living feel. I built it using only the Canvas API and vanilla JS. Even while creating it, I was amazed that this level of interaction was possible without a framework.
I also pre-made my own constellation. On the Minseok's Constellation page, the stories I've written over the past seven years in the 'Finding the Shape of My Place' series float as stars. In the corner, a video from a Remuse lecture four years ago plays softly, like a small billboard in the night sky.
Even if it's winding, even if there are gaps
One thing became clear while creating this project: when the metaphor you use to describe your career changes, the way you see yourself changes too.
If you think you're standing on a ladder, experiences where you went sideways become useless detours. If you think you're on a jungle gym, it's slightly better, but the time you let go of the bar becomes a blank space. But if you think you're drawing a constellation, there are no detours or gaps. There are only areas without stars, and those empty spaces are places to be filled in the future.
I once had a career consultation with a startup CEO who said, "If you've been at one company for five years, aren't you just someone stuck in inertia?" I felt so wronged by that remark I wrote a long essay about it. But from the constellation's perspective, staying in one place for a long time means stars are densely packed in that area. The brightest part of the constellation. Only you know if that's inertia or concentration. And you'll see it when you draw the lines yourself.
In the epilogue, I wrote: "The shape of my place will keep changing, and that's okay." The same goes for constellations. Stars keep being added, lines are redrawn, shapes shift. Yesterday's constellation may differ from tomorrow's. But whatever shape it takes, it's my constellation.
Even if it's all twisted and tangled, even if there are empty spaces — that's your constellation.
If you want to create your own, try it here.