What Career Is Right for Me? Find Out in 3 Steps!

“What Job Should I Have?”

Perhaps no question is more important… or more daunting.

To tackle this existential query, let me give you the three steps that I’ve shared with thousands of job-seekers as a career coach for both University of Michigan MBAs and military veterans at Shift.org.

Step 1: “What Job Is Right for Me?”

The first step is to reframe the question from just “What job should I have?” to “What job is right for me?”

That’s because there’s no such thing as a great job for everyone - just jobs and careers with differing degrees of fit for each unique person.

So before we even venture out into the wider world of occupations, let’s start by looking within. And rather than take an expensive, time-consuming personality test, let’s just start with a simple exercise:

• Start by thinking back across all your experiences - be they professional, academic, or extracurricular.
• Identify a time that you felt like you were in a “flow state” - this is the label that psychologists use to describe feeling totally motivated and perfectly challenged. Common characteristics of these flow experiences include losing track of time and feeling like you didn’t want to do anything except accomplish what you were focused upon. For example, maybe you were trying to solve a tricky issue with a spreadsheet or you were leading a team to get a project done before a deadline.
• Once you have this time in mind, think back to the characteristics that made the experience so engaging. Were you working alone or with others? Were you using analytical or interpersonal skills? Did you have a certain kind of goal in mind or were you using certain tools?
• With these characteristics at the tip of your tongue, fill out as many of these descriptors as possible:

You now have a list of your own inclinations, gifts, and superpowers to help you find a perfect match out there in the working world!

Step 2: “What Should I Do for a Career?”

With your list of motivators in hand, it’s now time to start exploring all the different pathways that are out there - and that align with your unique gifts.

While you could randomly explore one career at a time, chances are you’re reading this post because you’re in a hurry to narrow down your list. So I’ve got a secret weapon for you: AI.

That’s right. More than any individual career coach, personality test, or grad school program, AI can instantly expose you to the complete world of opportunities.

All you need to do is head over to ChatGPT (or your preferred platform) and enter a prompt like the following:

Here are the things that define the work I love doing:

• Environment:
• Motivation:
• Skills:
• Tools:

Please suggest 10 specific job titles that would be a uniquely good fit for me.

What you’ll get back are the exact jobs that both match your unique personality AND that recruiters are looking to fill - i.e., the perfect Venn diagram union between you and the world of work.

Step 3: “What Job Should I Do?”

While you now have a good sense of what’s possible, you still need to narrow down this broader list of roles to the one that you actually want to pursue.

To get there, let’s enlist the help of both AI and your own community.

First, start by asking ChatGPT for more information about the 10 roles it suggested. Think about the things that matter to you (compensation, flexibility, growth opportunities, etc.) and then feed those into a prompt like the following:

Please rate those 10 roles based on the following criteria: Average Salaries, Expected Growth in Hiring, Opportunities in Florida

And then, based on these rankings, eliminate the roles that might be a good fit for your skills - but that aren’t a good fit for your personal needs.

Finally, to evaluate the remaining roles (ideally 2–3 at this stage), head over to LinkedIn and do an alumni search like the following:

1. Do a People Search for the job title you want to explore
2. Click All filters and then select all the universities you’ve attended from the Schools filter
3. Run your search - you now have a list of the people in your chosen field who’ve attended your same alma mater(s)
4. Click Connect on a few alumni of interest and send them a message like the following: “As a fellow Spartan/Wolverine/Etc. who’s also passionate about X ROLE, I’d love to learn about your experience! Any chance I could pick your brain for a few minutes next week? It would mean so much to learn from an expert in this space!”

And then, when it’s time to chat with these insiders, come right back to the things you discovered about yourself in the first step - your favorite skills, motivations, and environments. Because you can ask them all about those topics to decide if a role is right for you. For example:

• “How much do you get to use X SKILL in this role?”
• “What keeps people driven in this role? How important is Y MOTIVATION?”
• “What does it feel like to do this role day to day? Do you get a chance to work in Z ENVIRONMENT?”

With this insider feedback in-hand, you can now pick the role that not only looks great on paper, but that feels right out where it actually matters - in the real world!

How to Figure Out What Career You Want

So there you have it: A 3-step process to go from career confusion to professional passion.

And just remember that the output of the process is only as good as what you put into it. Since at the end of the day, each professional brings unique gifts to the table - and you deserve a career that’s just as unique and capable as you are!

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