How to Make Big Career Decisions a Little Easier
How do you feel about the work you’re doing? Are you
enlivened? Is your career headed down the path you had in
mind? Or do you find yourself wondering whether it’s time
to make a career change that will help you meet your goals?
If you’re considering such a change, the enormity of this
decision may be weighing on you, as you evaluate a choice
that will impact more than your work life.
When making career decisions, you’ll benefit by breaking
the decision down into smaller parts, to help you identify
the criteria most important for you. Once you identify your
needs, interests, values, and ideals for your work, you
will have what you need to evaluate the suitability of your
current and potential future jobs.
Getting Started What are the Core Needs you have in order
to become fulfilled at work?
Theorists have found that we are born with our Core Needs,
and they stay with us throughout our lives. Individuals,
either consciously or unconsciously, tend to look for ways
to have these needs met. When met, people feel energized
and enlivened. When missing, people tend to feel more
drained of energy and dissatisfied. Therefore, the extent
you can align your Core Needs to your work will enable you
to realize greater joy and satisfaction.
Questions you may ask to clarify your own Core Needs
include:
1. What do you consider essential in order to be fulfilled
at work?
2. What are your most cherished values?
3. In what ways do you prefer to interact with others?
4. How do you like to get your work done?
The outcomes of such questions result in your ability to
identify your core needs, values, and preferred approach to
your work. Take your responses, and start a list of each
need you have, and how important each need is. An example
is offered below.
Career Decision Criteria CORE NEEDS ~ RELATIVE IMPORTANCE
*Make a significant impact ~ Must Have *Skillful
performance ~ Must Have *Variety ~ Must Have *Contextual
Thinking ~ Must Have *Ability to take the time necessary to
get the best result ~ Must Have
What are your Compelling Interests and Motivations? The
second set of questions to ask yourself will help you
identify your Compelling Interests and Motivations.
Researchers suggest that our interests and motivations tend
to stabilize by our mid-twenties, meaning you may
experience a bit more change in this area than in your Core
Needs. As your career progresses, you’re likely to find
this area stabilize.
Identify your Compelling Interests and Motivations by
exploring these questions:
1. What kinds of occupations have you always found most
interesting?
2. What subjects are most interesting to you?
3. What work activities have you enjoyed the most, and why?
4. What do you find particularly motivating?
5. What do you never grow tired of talking about?
Once you uncover your Compelling Interests and Motivations,
you will be able to identify your most compelling
occupational themes, interests, and motivating factors that
will provide another set of inputs towards your decision.
Career Decision Criteria COMPELLING INTERESTS/MOTIVATIONS ~
RELATIVE IMPORTANCE *Helping others in original,
imaginative ways ~ Must Have *Independence ~ Must Have
*Writing ~ Must Have
When you’re aware of your Core Needs, Compelling Interests,
and Motivations, you’ll have a much greater ability to
weigh various career decisions against this set of criteria
that is true to your ideal career qualities.
Of course, the complexity of a career decision doesn’t stop
there. There are at least three, and possibly numerous
additional criteria categories you have for your career.
The three aspects we’ll cover next are the places where you
may find the most change throughout your work life.
What is your preferred work Context? Context has to do with
who you serve in your work, who you work with, where you
work, and how you work.
To clarify your preferred work place, customers, and
coworkers, ask yourself questions such as:
1. Who do you want to serve in your work?
2. What qualities do you value in your coworkers, managers,
and workplace?
3. Where do you want to work?
4. When do you want to do your work?
5. How do you define your ideal work day?
Career Decision Criteria PREFERRED CONTEXT ~ RELATIVE
IMPORTANCE *Working from a Home Office ~ Like to Have
*Having a regular and stable schedule ~ Like to Have
*Having a combination of work as part of a team, and
independent work ~ Like to Have *Working with people who
value quality and relationships ~ Must Have
What Competencies do you want to be able to use at work?
This next area, Competencies, also contains elements that
will serve you and remain constant throughout your work
life, while others will come and go as your work
environments change. This is where you want to do some work
describing the knowledge, skills, and abilities you’ve
developed that you want to keep, and what new competencies
you want to add.
These types of questions will help you identify your
preferred competencies: 1. What knowledge, skills, and
abilities have you developed that you enjoy using? 2. What
projects or work experiences do you think of as your career
highlights?  3. What new competencies interest you?
Career Decision Criteria COMPETENCIES ~ RELATIVE IMPORTANCE
*Listening and identifying unmet needs of others ~ Like to
Have *Communicating effectively through writing ~ Must Have
*Designing customized programs for customers ~ Like to Have
What Connections are most important to you? The Connections
you have throughout your Career will be diverse. Some of
your connections will stay with you over many years, and
others will come and go as your circumstances change.
When considering your potential change, ask yourself these
questions:
1. Who do you love to be around, and why?
2. How does your spending time with these kinds of people
enrich your life?
3. Who do you support, and who supports you, in your career?
Career Decision Criteria CONNECTIONS ~ RELATIVE IMPORTANCE
*Opportunities to stay current and connected with others in
my field ~ Must Have *Finding a mentor in my workplace ~
Like to Have *Working with peers who have similar skills ~
Like to Have
Putting it all together: After you’ve found clarity
regarding your most important career decision criteria in
the above five categories (Core Needs, Compelling Interests
and Motivations, Context, Competencies, and Connections),
you can build a decision table to reference as you evaluate
your current job and research new jobs. To create your
table, you may want to use MS Excel, or simply write all
your criteria down on one sheet of paper. Your criteria
will be listed along the left hand column, with the
Relative Importance directly beside your criteria. Then,
create a column for every job you want to evaluate against
these criteria. Start with your current job. If you find
that your current job truly does meet all of your needs,
yet only one or two desired qualities are missing, you may
want to start by exploring what possibilities there are for
bringing what’s missing to your workplace.
If you find yourself struggling to generate meaningful
answers to the kinds of questions asked throughout this
article on your own, you may want to consider working with
a professional career services provider, so they can help
you gain the level of clarity you need to make a sound
career decision. Good career service providers offer a full
range of career assessments, tools, and resources to help
you make decisions and navigate through the career
transition process.
The career landscape presents thousands of job choices that
can be overwhelming in their diversity. This approach of
breaking a big career change decision into smaller parts
helps you quickly identify your values, interests, natural
talents, and working style preferences, all of which will
help you narrow the vast array of choices you’re faced with
when selecting or changing your career. Once you find
clarity regarding your core needs and interests for a
career, then the work of active experimentation,
networking, informational interviews, and job shadowing can
take place within a few targeted areas. As you align your
work and workplace to your personal preferences, natural
talents, and interests, you’ll find that you experience
much less strain and greater satisfaction in your work.
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This article is provided by
http://www.srpcareertransitions.com : Helping people
clarify their goals, differentiate themselves, sell their
skills to prospective employers, and get on a path to more
enlivening work. Stephanie Peacocke is a career coach,
certified professional resume writer and specialist in
career resilience and differentiation.
http://www.srpcareertransitions.com
