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Why do people make the career choices they do?
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A client who listens to the podcast shared that question with me when I asked what he might like to hear me cover in future episodes.
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It stuck with me, and I kept on thinking about it.
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So much of my work, whether it was my early work in fundraising, after business school in consumer products marketing and marketing research, as an executive recruiter, or now as an executive and career coach, has centered around this very basic question.
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Why do people make the choices they do?
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In this podcast episode, I'd like to consider this question, but in the context of career choices and how those choices you might make can send signals that can ultimately have an impact on your narrative.
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So stay tuned and learn how career choices you make can send powerful signals to the marketplace and a practical exercise you can do in just a few minutes to better understand the signals you might already be sending to gatekeepers who hold the keys to your career advancement.
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Why do people make the choices they do?
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As an executive and career coach, most of the conversations I have with people are in service of making a choice, often about a job opportunity, whether it's an actual one, meaning a client has an open offer or one that's imminent, or a potential offer, meaning, the client is deciding whether or not to throw their hat in the ring for an open roll.
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Approaching these choices typically involves some introspection, meaning the client asks themselves: Will I enjoy doing this job?
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Is there a good chance it will make me feel accomplished and valued?
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Will I enjoy working with the people?
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Is the compensation sufficient to serve my financial needs?
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Will having this job allow me to live my life in a way and in a place that suits me?
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What ties all these questions together, and there could be many more than I've just mentioned, is a person's understanding of themself.
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It's a very inward focused process, and that's typically how the people I work with first approach a major career or life decision when we have a conversation about it.
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And it makes sense.
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Of course you're going to consider what's important to you when you're making a decision that could impact the trajectory of your entire career, and even your life.
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But when the conversation stays in this inwardly-focused mode, it often misses a key element of what I believe to be sound career decision-making.
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What's missing is a reflection on the signal the choice is going to send out to the marketplace and how that signal could shape their or your narrative.
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How are the people meeting you, or reading your LinkedIn profile, or reading your resume, how are they interpreting that?
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And what narrative will they craft about you in their minds before they even have an opportunity to really speak with you?
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I'd make the case that you need to think about your consequential career decisions both ways.
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You need the inward reflection to understand what will be satisfying and meaningful to you now and in the near future, but you also need to consider how the choice you're going to make will affect how the gatekeepers to your career aspirations might view you.
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And those gatekeepers are typically executive recruiters, corporate recruiters, HR professionals, and hiring managers.
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If you're a listener of this podcast, I'm sure you've run into a few of those gatekeepers by now.
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As a former executive recruiter at a top firm, my colleagues and I were always looking for signals in a potential candidate's background.
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Let's say we were considering you.
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By the choices you've made so far in your career, we might look for signals that you are or aspire to be a visionary leader.
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Or have your choices suggested that you're more comfortable being a behind-the-scenes manager of people and operations?
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Do your choices signal that you'd be most effective in a larger, complex organization?
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Or do they point to a comfort level in smaller and leaner organizations?
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Do your choices signal that you might accept a lower compensation offer for an exceptional opportunity or do they imply that you'd likely only be satisfied by a rich and comprehensive comp package?
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And where do all these signals come from?
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Primarily, we determined them from a progression of titles and organizations.
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If you've ever been involved in hiring or evaluating candidates, I'm sure you've done this to a certain extent.
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You make all kinds of assumptions about someone from their progression of titles, companies, and brands.
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And you typically see those on a LinkedIn profile or a resume.
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But have you ever done that for yourself?
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Have you ever really put yourself in the place of a person evaluating your education and career trajectory?
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Seeing it for the first time and reading the signals and making assumptions?
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If not, I'd encourage you to do it.
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If you have a reasonably complete LinkedIn profile, it shouldn't require any advance work.
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Pull up your LinkedIn profile and try to imagine you're seeing your profile for the first time.
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Scroll down to the Education section.
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Click Show All if you need to and give it a quick scan.
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Actually reading the words.
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When we look at our own histories and materials like our resume, we have a tendency to not read the words because we know our own history so well.
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And I'd encourage you to actually read the words.
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Then scroll up to the Experience section and do the same thing.
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Click Show All if you need to.
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And then scan the company names from the bottom to the top.
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Then scan the titles from the bottom to the top, reading all the words.
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Don't read the descriptions, just read the titles and look at the company names.
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Now, on a piece of paper or in a digital notebook or whatever works for you, I want you to note the initial industry or category you started work in.
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If that industry or category changed in a subsequent role, draw an arrow pointing to the right.
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And then write the name of that second industry or category.
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Keep on doing that until you've gotten to your present industry or category.
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And if you're considering a change, draw another arrow and add that new industry or category to the end of the list.
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If you need to glance back at your LinkedIn profile, go ahead, but remember to work off the company names and not the descriptions of what you did in the experience entry.
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Below that connected line of industries and or categories do the same thing for the functional areas you worked in.
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Let's say you started off in marketing.
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Write that down.
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If you changed to product management or business development at some point, draw an arrow pointing to the right and note that new functional area.
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Keep on doing that until you get to the present day or to the next job you think you might be offered or accept.
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Now that you've done that, I want you to take a moment to reflect.
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What do those two trajectories related to industry and functional area say about you?
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What are some of the conclusions you might draw as an outside observer?
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Do you appear to have settled into an industry or category?
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Do you appear to be specializing in a particular functional area?
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Or have you been rotating through a few, potentially on the way to a general management role, let's say?
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Are the companies you've worked for known for being particularly innovative, or perhaps reliable and stable?
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Or have you moved from one end of that spectrum to another?
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Or something else?
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Have you always worked in higher paying roles in high performing businesses?
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Or is there a mix that indicates some experimentation and flexibility?
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When you were scanning through your company names, did you also happen to notice the locations?
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Was there a pattern?
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If the pattern of location changed, When did that happen?
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Does it raise any questions or perhaps provide any insight into your life or your decision-making?
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I could go on for quite a while with questions like this.
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Just try to put yourself in the place of someone who is first getting acquainted with your background.
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Take note of the initial conclusions you might draw and the questions you might have.
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Stepping outside yourself like this is a good reality check when, among other things, you're making a decision about an offer for a new job.
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How does this next job, if you take it, affect the trajectory of your career when it comes to industry or category, company or organization, and functional area?
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And what signals might that send to the marketplace, to the gatekeepers for your aspirations and career advancement?
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And are those the signals you intend to send?
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I almost always do a quick analysis like this when I'm familiarizing myself with a new client's background, and I tend to jot down my observations just as I've described, with a line of industries or categories connected by right-pointing arrows and the same for functional area or role.
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It helps me get the bigger picture.
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And I usually have a few bullets capturing my observations and some questions I might have below that.
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It doesn't take much time and it's an easy way to step outside yourself and not get lost in the minutiae of your own career.
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In other words, it helps you see the forest from the trees.
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So give it a try.
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And if this has been helpful, share this episode with a friend, or better yet, review this podcast.
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And if you'd like to review your LinkedIn profile together to determine the signals you might be sending out to the marketplace, intentionally or unintentionally, sign up for a Career Strategy Session with me at careernarratives.com/strategy.
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See you soon!
