Finding a Job When You Don’t Know What You Want to Do Next

Coronavirus is accelerating career transitions across the board, hitting record highs in November when 4.5 million Americans walked off the job. For some of us, mass layoffs and furloughs triggered this change. For others, pandemic-induced solitude exposed misalignments between our work and our values. Few people find embarking on a job search exciting. In fact, most of us would probably agree that it’s a daunting and emotionally exhausting process. As a result, early career job seekers tend to fall into two broad categories: avoiders or gatherers. Overwhelmed by feelings of fear or confusion, avoiders often shut down entirely: “I don’t know where to start so I’m going to do nothing.” Gatherers, on the other hand, respond to those same emotions with feverish action: “I have no idea what I want to do so I’m casting a wide net,” or, “I hate my current job, so I’ll apply to everything.” Neither mindset is going to lead you to a successful outcome. In the case of avoiders, idleness does not result in job offers. For gatherers, a lack of clear direction leaves you wandering in many directions. To land a job you will actually enjoy doing, you need to be intentional about where you apply and why. As part of my own process, I’ve created what I call a Career and Personal Manifesto, a framework to provide structure to any job search. You can use it, too. Here’s how. The Career and Personal Manifesto The manifesto includes three steps: Evaluate Engage Execute Evaluate A successful job search is simple. All you have to do is find job opportunities that match your needs and goals. The hard part is figuring out what those needs and goals are. To start, spend time with yourself and evaluate potential next steps. Consider the six categories below, each of which include a series of questions to help you discover the factors most and least important to you in your next role. As you answer these questions, think about your past and present jobs or internships, and which aspects of each role you enjoyed most (or really disliked). Environment: What kinds of environments, management styles, and ways of working do you thrive in? Role: What kind of roles and prospects for growth are you looking for? Compensation: What’s the minimum compensation you will accept and what’s your ideal range? Skills Acquisition: What skills and competencies does your resume currently demonstrate? Are you looking to gain additional skills or further specialize in what you know now? Career Narrative: How does your resume position you in the hiring market? For example, does it suggest you’re someone who cares about socially driven work? Does it suggest you’re great at building, launching, and leading new initiatives? Have you collected “prestigious” company logos? On the Horizon: Is there a meaningful and realistic step you can take within the next 18 months based on your answers? For example, are there opportunities you can take off the table or add? Next, use your answers to these questions to fill out the Job Search Prioritization Matrix. This will help you figure out which roles to prioritize as you move forward with your search. Rank order the six evaluation categories based on order of importance: Must Haves: Required – will not consider any job without these items. Nice to Haves: Important but won’t make or break an opportunity. No Ways: Required – will not consider any job with these items. Don’t Cares: Things that don’t matter or are non-starters. For instance, if compensation is the most important factor to you when searching for a new role, it should be the furthest left on the matrix. To illustrate how to use this tool, I’ve provided an example of a matrix that has been filled out and ranked up below. This matrix is for a junior consultant who is hypothetically interested in getting a job in the tech industry, and who most values skills acquisition and work environment. Engage After working through the questions and filling out the matrix, you should have a better idea of what you are looking to do next. Now, it’s time to take action and start reaching out to people in your network. Discussions are a natural part of the job-hunting process, but you want to segment the people you engage with into two categories: Thought Partners: People who can weigh in on your thinking and path forward (mentors, alumni networks, former managers and colleagues, etc.) Opportunity Sourcers: People who can help you identify open opportunities When seeking outside counsel, be wary of what I call “advice of convenience,” taking advice from people simply because they are in your orbit (an easy trap to fall into). Instead, try to step out of your comfort zone. The best people to reach out to for advice are people you a) admire, b) have demonstrated skills and personal attributes you would like to gain, or c) are doing what you want (or think you want) to be doing. After all, who better to show you the path to where you want to go than the person already there? Surprisingly, people of all stature are accessible and enjoy offering career advice. There are a variety of channels you can use to reach professionals. The most tried-and-true is LinkedIn, where many professionals have an account. If you use this channel, include a personalized invitation to connect, explaining your objectives to increase the chances of a response. The basic structure of your message should be: Introduce yourself. Establish legitimacy by sharing context on your background. Clearly explain the purpose of your outreach, including why you want to connect with the recipient (e.g. a specific job you have identified at their company, interest in their industry, or interest in learning more about their career path). Make an ask to meet either by, phone, video call, or in person. Sticking with the above example of the junior consultant who is interested in transitioning into the tech industry, here is a LinkedIn message they might send to a hiring manager at a company they’re interested in: Hi Ben: I’m a second-year consultant with case work that includes working with education agencies. I’m looking to transition to EdTech startups and Handshake piqued my interest. Would you be open to speaking with me some time about roles that may match my skill set and interests? Appreciate any time you can provide and hope to hear from you soon. Industries such as technology, media, and fashion also heavily leverage social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. If the person with whom you are interested in connecting has a public account, you could send them a public tweet, comment on one of their posts, send a private direct message, depending on your comfort level. A cold email — similar to the LinkedIn message above — is another option to consider. (Many years ago, I sent an Instagram direct message to the woman leading the U.K. fashion and luxury retail practice of a top technology company asking to meet while I was in London — we did and we’re still in touch!) Individuals with whom you have affinity will result in higher response rates. This can be high school or college alumni or individuals with whom you share a sports, hometown/home state, cultural, gender, greek life, or professional society tie. Once a meeting time has been confirmed, be sure to send a calendar invite with all the appropriate details to the person you are connecting with. You want to make it as easy as possible for them. Execute At this stage, work with the contacts you have made in the step above to identify a few opportunities that are a good fit for you and the next stage of your career. Take another look at your evaluation criteria and determine how your job prospects stack up against each other. This is where the Opportunities Prioritization Matrix comes in. Use it to organize the opportunities you find and prioritize which ones you actually want to apply to. This will save you a great deal of time and energy in your search. The Opportunities Prioritization Matrix is a loose adaptation of the Eisenhower Matrix Framework. Here’s how to set it up: Look back at the Job Prioritization Matrix. Which two categories did you rate as most important to you? Place these on the two axes and assess your opportunities to see if they rank high or low (meet or do not meet) those priorities. The matrix has four quadrants of priority: Focus Here: Opportunities in this quadrant are your “dream jobs.” They meet the two most important criteria you have identified so you should invest the most time pursuing these. Waste of Time: Opportunities in this quadrant rank low for your most important criteria. They may not even be worth applying to Be Mindful of Time Invested: These roles match your most important criteria but not the second. You will want to use discretion applying to these positions as well. Distractions: Naturally, you’ll come across interesting opportunities that do not satisfy your most important criteria. Try not to spend time applying to them. If we use our original example of a junior consultant interested in moving into the tech industry, we know that this job candidate has an interest in mission-driven companies and has indicated in their Job Prioritization Matrix that maintaining a generalist skill set and dynamic, collaborative environment are the two most important factors for their next job. Below is an example of how they might fill out the Opportunities Prioritization Matrix if they were considering the below roles at various companies. Above, you can see that job opportunities that offer generalist skills development (e.g. strategy, partnerships and sales, operations) and collaborative team environments land in the focus here quadrant. Job opportunities with a specialized skill set and less collaborative environment land in the distractions quadrant. Since social mission is also important to this candidate, you’ll see that mission-driven companies rank high fit on environment. Similar positions at non-mission driven companies rank low fit when it comes to environment.. All companies and positions have trade-offs so structuring your matrix in this way allows you to stay laser focused on only the two most important factors as you evaluate opportunities. For even the most seasoned professionals, the multitude of career paths and job opportunities available is an immobilizing feature of a job search process. By using a structured framework such as this one to focus your efforts, you’ll end up with a more favorable outcome and avoid becoming an avoider or gatherer.

Finding a Job When You Don’t Know What You Want to Do Next

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