Photo by Arnel Hasanovic on Unsplash
Whether you’re planning a job change, trying to work out your next steps or fresh out of education it can be difficult to know where to start with planning your career. To help you out, we’ve pulled together these ten questions to put to yourself. These are very much broad, blue-sky thinking; they're not designed to help you along a specific career path so much as to help you identify the type of path you might be looking for! But being broad doesn't mean they won't be concretely helpful whatever stage of career consideration you're at; it is always important to have one eye on the bigger picture.
How important is your career to you, actually?
This is one that can be difficult to ask, because these days it seems there's a blanket expectation that we will all be ambitious, passionate and career-driven (alongside whatever other things we have going on in our lives). Especially as women, having fought long and hard for respect in the workplace and roles beyond housewife and mother, it can be scary to admit that you don't actually want to max out on all this career opportunity. Rearing children is an absolutely vital role for our entire civilisation so yes, it is totally fine if that's your major life goal. And sure, you will still probably need a way to make money, but admitting to yourself if your job is never going to be your priority is a helpful step to finding one that fits with the overall life you want to create.
What sort of lifestyle do I want?
This is a really, really important one that is all too often overlooked when thinking about work. After all, your job is not only where you spend most of your waking hours, its pay grade, hours, location etc all directly impact your existence outside of the 'office'. It provokes other questions, such as:
How sacred is your free time? Do you want a clear delineation in your work/life balance because nothing takes priority over spending time with your family and friends, or are you happy for the job to bleed into your evenings and weekends because hey, it's the thing you love doing the most anyway? When I was employed by companies, I sometimes resented working late or taking work home. But when I first worked started my business, I didn’t even want weekends. I just wanted to do the work!
Am I going to want to have children, i.e. do I need a job that will accommodate maternity leave and potentially flexible working in the future? Whilst maternity leave is a legal right different companies/industries may have different approaches, particularly when it comes to flexibility.
Do I want to live in a city, or in the countryside? Some jobs just don’t exist in both.
And, then, onto a lifestyle question that’s so significant it gets its own paragraph:
How important is wealth to you?
(It's ok to ask this, by the way – too often women have been seen as grasping or unfeminine if they admit to wanting money, but we all know that’s just patriarchal nonsense!)
I wish someone had been honest with me when I was at school and university about the difference in earning potential between someone who took an arts job fresh out of university and someone who accepted that internship in finance. I'm not saying I would have made completely different choices, but I would have felt better knowing that being paid less than my peers for years had been an active, informed decision.
What past professional experiences have really fulfilled you?
Was there a big project you really threw yourself into and made a difference? Did you come up with a new idea and implement it? Did you have a creative project that inspired you? It's a no-brainer to assume that the kinds of work you've enjoyed doing in the past might be work you'd enjoy doing again.
What are you excited by?
In other words, what gets you leaping out of bed in the morning – what inspires a gut response of joy? Don't limit yourself here – if trying a new breakfast or plans to see your friends is what gets you excited to start the day then that's all useful information. Because if there’s absolutely nothing in your career that inspires that gut reaction then you need to make some changes.
What genuinely interests you?
Similar to the last question, but more intellectual. Think about what actually fascinates you. What, whenever you come across it, leaves you wanting to learn more.
If something is interesting to you, trust that it is interesting to you for a reason; that it is another breadcrumb on the amazing trail that will make your life yours and not anybody else’s.
What would you do in a dream world, with no limitations?
Ignore what skills you do and don't have, where you live, how old you are – just think of your dream job. Write it down.
Is your dream job something you could actually aim for? Or is it probably out-of-reach (being a supermodel isn't going to happen for most of us)? If it's the first, then congratulations! You've achieved something most of us struggle with – you have a clear and achievable goal. You now just have to go about working out the steps to reaching it…
If it's the second, then break down what exactly it is about that dream job that you want. Is it prestige, glamour, freedom, excitement? E.g. if you dream of being a novelist, is it because you actually want to write stories all day every day or is it because you want to be able to manage your own time, engage your creativity and be well-respected, even famous for it? Break it down further: if you think you want to be 'famous', why? Is it because you want to be internationally respected, stopped in the street by adoring fans, or simply sent loads of free stuff?
Keep trying to break down the aspects until you have something that sounds do-able. This might look like realising that what you fundamentally want is autonomy, to feel respected, and to have nice possessions. Now you have some measureables against which you can compare potential career paths.
What do your friends and family think you should do?
This may seem counterintuitive, because ultimately it's what you want that matters, and people around you can often have their own unconscious agendas – BUT, they might also have thought of things you haven't. Disclaimer: if your family have very fixed and limiting ideas of what you ought to do with your life, feel free to bypass this one altogether. But if not, choose people you think will be open-minded and positive and ask them what jobs they would pick out for you, if they could. Loved ones will often see strengths in us that we miss ourselves, and translate those strengths into opportunities. Try asking them:
'What do you think I'm really good at?'
'What sort of job(s) do you think I would excel in?'
What are your values?
Do you want to make a difference to the world? Is it important that you work for an ethical organisation? Do you want to be surrounded by progressive, forward-thinkers or do you love tradition and heritage? (These last two are not actually incompatible!)
Make a note of any values that might influence your choice of work.
Do you know the reality of jobs you have in mind?
This is of course one of our main goals with The Career Girl, to help you discover what it's really like actually doing jobs – hence not just our profiles but also our new blog series, 'What it's really like to be a …', which started two weeks' ago with Atia, a GP. If you think you might be interested in a role, but actually have no direct experience or insight into what it involves, try reaching out to someone doing it. If you've no idea how to go about finding someone, let us know and we can try to help! But either way, the goal is to get to know the real job, not just the notion you have of it.
We hope you’ll find these helpful starting points when thinking about your career path. Don’t forget, (even now) the world is full of more opportunities than you can imagine – you just need to find the ones that are right for you!