Thinking about your future career can be stressful. Looking to the experts can make the process a little simpler.
Fortunately for us, a group of researchers have made a (free!) guide, compiling information about career success and fulfillment. “80,000 Hours” is a non-profit organization committed to help people find careers that make them happy and help the world. Started in 2011 by two students at Oxford, the charity believes it is important that people find jobs that make a difference. After all, according to their guide, a typical career lasts 80,000 hours. If you could find a career in which you could excel, have fun and help the world, wouldn’t you take it?
“80,000 Hours” is pretty critical about what it means to “make a difference.” Have you ever heard of a charity you thought was effective, but it really only sent a fraction of its donations to the actual cause? It is important to be careful about how you help the world, because what may seem at first like a benevolent gesture may end up doing more harm than good.
“80,000 Hours” defines “making a difference” as something that “promotes welfare over the long-term.” They indicate that you should be impartial when helping people; e.g., if you promote the welfare of just your friends, or just those of the same race as you, or just those living today and not future generations, then this does not qualify as making a difference.
It is also important not only to make an impact, but to make as big of an impact as possible. For this reason, “80,000 Hours” focuses their research on determining which of the world’s problems are most pressing, that is, those for which one extra person working to solve it would make the biggest difference. They advise you to center your career on problems that are not only large (affect a large number of people), but also those that don’t have a lot of people who work on them.
But don’t you want a job that you can feel good about and enjoy? Here is the list of ideal job characteristics from the guide (listed from most important to least important):
- Engaging
- Helps others
- Good at it
- Supportive colleagues
- Lack of major negatives
- Fits with the rest of your life
If you can find a career that fits all these characteristics, great! But do not be bummed if you can’t. There is often some sort of trade-off, so think of these as guidelines.
Now let us get to actually finding a career. The career guide lists lots of advice, but I’ve broken it down into a three-step process that you can start on today.
1. Generate a big list of options.
Identify the most pressing problems and the career paths that help them the most. 80,000 Hours has done the work for you; visit their website and see if any of their “most pressing problems” or “priority paths” interest you.
Then, to generate more options, ask yourself these questions:
- What are your greatest skills? How could you apply these to a pressing world problem?
- If you had all the money in the world, what would you do?
- What careers do your friends/family/professors think would suit you?
- Could you combine any of these options into one?
- If you couldn’t do any of these options, what would you do instead?
- What careers have you considered in the past?
Next, evaluate each of these options based on their personal fit. Does the work match your strengths and interests? Have you excelled at similar work in the past? Rank these options from most to least desirable, keeping your personal fit and the ideal job characteristics in mind.
2. Explore your options, and/or build career capital.
The best way to evaluate your options is to explore. Aim to start your exploration with tests that do not require a lot of commitment, such as: doing a side project related to the work, trying a part-time position, or speaking to an expert in the field. You may even just pretend to apply to a position to see how it makes you feel.
While you explore, try to build your “career capital” as well. Career capital is anything that can help you advance in your career: education, skills, connections, financial resources, etc. This will come in handy when you are finally ready to make a decision, or if you end up changing your mind mid-career. As you gain skills and connections from exploring, think about which of these could be transferable to another career. Before getting specialized skills or credentials in one area, make sure there are not other ways to explore that option which could give you broader skills.
A commonly overlooked form of career capital is mental health. If you are struggling with a mental health issue, resolving this issue could be one of the most important things you do to help your career. Mental illnesses can make the career exploration process more difficult and make you less productive throughout your life. Consider investing in yourself during this exploration period, and think about what options will help or hurt your mental health.
3. Make a plan.
After you think you have explored enough and have found the best option, it’s time to make a plan for the next step of your career.
When you decide on the best option, do not just go with your gut. According to research, going with your gut only works for certain situations: those for which you have a lot of prior experience, have received quality feedback and those which are relatively predictable. For example, deciding to reach out to a friend might fit these criteria: you probably have a lot of prior experience with this, have received feedback in similar situations and (if you know this friend well) your friend’s personality is likely somewhat predictable. Career decisions, on the other hand, are only made a few times in your life and the job market is always changing. For these reasons, it’s best to think rationally when you make a career decision, instead of relying on instinct.
Make sure to use your concrete experiences from exploration to inform your decision. If you do not feel like you have enough information, keep exploring. Avoid comparing careers abstractly.
Lastly, when planning your career, focus on the next few steps, rather than making a five-year plan. Plans often change, so yours likely will, too. You should also have back-up options in case things don’t go according to plan.
Deciding on a career is tough. But when you look at researchers for advice, and you are not afraid to make mistakes, you are on track to finding a career you love. And the world will thank you for it.
Holly Benson is a fourth-year English major with a Spanish minor. HB919726@wcupa.edu