Apr 04 2008
How to Find the Right Career For YOU
One of the most common questions I get from readers and commenters is “How do I find the right career?” I have an answer, but unfortunately, it isn’t easy. (In my experience, nothing worthwhile ever is.) Finding the right career requires you to think like an investigator. It’s your job to come up with questions, perform research, locate sources, conduct interviews, and assemble the information into the Answer. It is WORK and it takes TIME, but it absolutely can be done.
Now close your eyes– Wait, that won’t work. You can’t read with your eyes closed, can you? Anyway, imagine you’re an investigative journalist and that figuring out the right career for you is your most important assignment. Let’s get started:
- WHO: Do you enjoy managing others, or do you prefer to be left alone to do your work? Do you like working alone or in a team? Do you like working with people? With ideas? Animals? Computers? Objects?
- WHAT: What are you passionate about? What is your purpose? When do you feel happiest and most fulfilled? What are your hobbies? What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? What stimulates your imagination or your sense of compassion? What makes you want to ACT, to DO SOMETHING? What fields are you drawn to? You can also flip these questions around–sometimes the results can offer insight into what you’re looking for. What bores you? What jobs have you had and hated? Why?
- WHEN: Are you motivated by pressure and deadlines, or do you prefer more open-ended tasks? Do you need your work to have a sense of urgency, or do you function better in a relaxed work environment?
- WHERE: Do you like working from home? In an office? Outdoors? What kind of work environment stimulates and motivates you (or depresses and disheartens you)? Are you willing to relocate or endure a long commute for a new career?
- WHY: What potential rewards from your career mean the most to you? Earning a lot of money? Helping others? Making a difference? Coming up with an innovative product? Being acknowledged as an expert? Being well-known in your field? Receiving praise and thanks?
- HOW: What are your strengths? What are your skills? (Online quizzes can be helpful here–see my recommendation later in this post.) What is your educational background? What is your working style?
Don’t just ask these questions to yourself–ask your significant other, your parents, your children, and your friends to answer them about you. You may be see a side of yourself that was previously hidden from you and get a completely new perspective.
One of the most important tools you’ll need during this process–an open mind. Don’t rule out an option until you’ve researched it and actually tried it out. That doesn’t mean you have to quit your job and get hired in your potential field in order to make an informed decision. But you should at least talk to someone who does the work. I thought I wanted to be a physicist at one point, but then I talked to a guy at Berkeley and had him describe his day to me. Conducting detailed experiments over and over, making minute adjustments, keeping meticulous records–not my cup of tea.
I mentioned that online tools can be helpful in answering the “HOW” question. There is one site I’d recommend–the ANSIR test. The test itself is free, but the detailed report costs $15.95. I found it to be accurate and insightful, so it was well worth the cost for me. The test assesses and provides descriptions of your thinking style, working style, and emoting style; provides a short statement of your life’s purpose (mine was “to change perspectives for human doing and being”, which I found very interesting); identifies your Achilles heel (”fear of trusting my own intuitive ability and power”); and suggests potential careers and educational majors.
Any suggestions for future posts? Email me!
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Interesting insight and good ideas. I think it’s easy to say I don’t like my job and I want a change but it’s hard to get out of that rut when “what we do” becomes “what we know.” Often I forget that my hobbies and other interests count too.
~K
Another WHAT question is: When you are at your happiest, what are you doing?
Like Kel said, this brings your actual interests into play and helps you consider them. For instance, if you are at your happiest when you are planning and executing birthday/anniversary/homecoming parties, volunteering at your kids’ school for dance and fundraiser committees, etc, then maybe you should look into event planning. That’s simplified, but it does work.
I struggle with this one when I have my “just in case (coaching doesn’t happen full time)” moments. I graduated with a darn high GPA, but I floundered a lot out of college, ended up in restaurants for a long time (I was in management at some points, not always just serving or bartending), and found myself wanting a real job but having no real qualifications anymore.
At this point, I look around, and I still feel like I’m not qualified for anything other than my administrative position because of my actual job experience. This frustrates me to no end, because I really am extremely smart, so I am totally overqualified for what I do in my brain, but not so much on paper.
This is one reason that coaching really must happen for me. I am qualified for it, I am passionate about it, and it really meets all those questions above.
I love that you say to ask a significant other about what you like to do. They do see you more clearly, past our musings that may have some daydreaming with it.
Hugs, JJ
I struggle with this one a bit because I honestly feel my purpose and my passion lies in a career around writing. However, to support my family I am working in a less than fulfilling career. My plan is to stick it out long enough to get a freelance writing career off the ground and then I can focus on my true passion. Your article presents some very relevant questions for anyone considering a career change, or just trying to follow their hearts. Great job!
I honestly feel like I’ve found my calling in my current work. My dream of dreams would be a writing career, but I don’t really think I have enough consistency and talent in my writing to support a career. Maybe that’s what I tell myself to welch out of trying, maybe it’s reality.
I do know that even though I hate managing people 4 out of 5 days a week, it’s because I need to develop my leadership skills, and I don’t like acknowledging my weaknesses deeply enough to overcome them. I love the work, though. Love.
Numbers don’t lie. Numbers are always real. They mean something. You can look at numbers, relate them to other numbers, and find powerful trends, interesting correlations, important patterns. When the numbers are all junked up, I hate life, but when I’ve put every red cent where it goes, and all those credits and debits line up and even out, life is sweet!
Frugal Dad,
Why not join the forum on this blog and start setting some early and small goals around your writing?
Great idea to use the five Ws and one H to frame the answer to this question. When I remember, I use them for writing and its a great tool.
Really wonderful post, full of helpful ideas.
Id never thought of having people ask their friends and family to answer these questions (when I was career coaching).
such a good idea.
I’ve had some success in using Prof Ed Schein’s (MIT) ‘career anchors’ approach.
Of course, this is only a model but it’s based on research and has been around for some decades.
I took the online assessment for $40 - this also includes a 6 page test result report and 60+ page pdf “Participants Workbook”.
The overall concept is that each person has a dominant “career anchor” which they will tend to be pulled towards (or back to!) over time and working experience. (I think the model’s usefulness also depends on your willingness to self-reflect and take active steps to “manage your career”. Not everyone does, or even can.)
There’s a brief summary of the 8 anchors here:
http://changingminds.org/explanations/values/career_anchors.htm
(I just discovered Dave’s site today. Highly recommended)
Also, the url for the online career anchors test is:
http://www.careeranchorsonline.com/SCA/startPage.do
I wrote a couple of blog posts on using career anchors as part of a career change strategy. Click on my name link above to read the latest.
regards
Mark McClure
tokyo
[…] or spinning their proverbial wheels trying to figure out their purpose in life–or at least what they should be doing to bring home the bacon! In my opinion, part of the reason this process–finding our message and medium–is so […]