Careers

You should also look up Ikagai. It is a Japanese version of the VENN diagram above. Here's a good example write-up: https://www.wholegraindigital.com/blog/ikigai-finding-purpose-at-work/ My major reason for not including a separate circle on "pay" is that I believe high Service/Value will more than take care of the money issue and that young men in the United States are too diverted into the money issues and spend their whole lives doing something they don't care about.

Brainstorm for Alternatives

If you aren’t coming up with many ideas at this point, you need to spend some time on the Internet, with parents/guardians/spouses, with mentors, and with teachers to generate some possibilities — especially the Internet and AI. Spend some time on sites like this: https://www.careeronestop.org/ExploreCareers/explore-careers.aspx or https://www.thebalancecareers.com/career-exploration-525632

Pick a company you always dreamed of working for, and find the Careers pages to see what openings they have. Read about the responsibilities.

Have fun with this to open your mind. You are worth it! Don’t just “settle” for the careers everyone around you is interested in or may be promoting. Brainstorm! Investigate! AI can help here if you are stuck, but use your own "MI" (My Intelligence) as primary.

Day in the Life Approach

Another thing you should do is Google several “a day in the life of a ….”. You may be pleasantly surprised by the number of professionals who have taken the time to help people like you by describing what they do every day. Read about the careers you are considering. Look for videos if you don’t want to read. 

If the write-up immediately seems boring, you are probably not going to be very happy spending 4 years in college and 40 years working in that area. Make sense? Big hint: If you aren’t interested enough to read a few of these about your future career, you may not really be interested in that career.

Example: https://www.cranerental.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-crane-operator/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqAvjeukUFk

Target Thinking, Perfection, and Not Ending Up On a Random Path

Now, let’s consider the idea of a target -- or maybe a few targets if you have a lot of interests and skills. Maybe your VENN diagram results in several intersections of Motivation, Skills and Service/Value.

There is a bullseye on a target. This would represent you ideal dream job and success if everything goes your way. This is the dream or one of the several dreams from the intersection of the VENN diagram above. 

Everyone wants to hit the bullseye (perfection), but we don’t always get 100% of what we want — do we? However, if you will think about the rings of a target you can still be incredibly successful in many careers that meet the VENN diagram criteria!

 Think about jobs that are similar in many ways:

• Same industry but “lesser” role — like PA instead of MD or high school basketball coach instead of NBA player

• Same function but different industry or with a competitor — like CFO in the computer business vs. CFO in real estate

• Entry job that can get your foot in the door to eventually be discovered — like audio production vs. solo artist in the music business

• Employee vs. entrepreneur — like hotel management vs. owning a hotel (at least until you learn the business)

You are still involved with the “thing you love” if you are in the outer rings of one of your targets. You are also possibly positioning yourself to get closer to the “ideal” if an opportunity presents itself. Look at the target diagram and work very hard to come up with some alternatives strongly related to your "bullseye" interests. It will really pay off. You can be in the business you love even if you aren't (immediately, anyway) the "star". 

So, if you are really interested in helping people be healthy, for example, you could be very happy and make major contributions being a Biomedical Engineer even if you didn’t get accepted to Medical School. You could be the best RN in a large hospital and help more people than if you were a surgeon. You could be an ophthalmologist instead of a neurosurgeon. You could be the CEO of a hospital instead of an MD. You could design hospitals. You could be the IT person who keeps the computer systems running for the entire hospital. You could service, update, and calibrate LASIK machines or surgical robots. Get it?

What you don't want to do, unless income becomes the major driver to care for your family, is to end up on a career "target" area that has no connection to your VENN diagram of Motivation, Skills and Service/Value. 

"Golden" (Fools Gold) Opportunities

Please, don’t end up on a target that has no connection to your VENN diagram(s) just because some random opportunity presents itself. In fishing, they would call it "taking the bait" or "jumping at the shiny object". Don’t take a short term “deal” for a few dollars. One student I knew quit high school to get a $10.50/hour job in a poultry processing plant. I took a job with one company over another because the one offered $30/month more. Sounds stupid?

If an incredible opportunity does present itself, however, you may want to rethink your VENN diagram. Just don’t “take the bait”, however, without thinking about the VENN diagram to see if it is a fit for you. Something you never thought about or something a relative/mentor offers may be the best thing that ever happened to you — so be open to possibilities. It may, however, pull you away from everything you ever wanted to do in your life. Be open, but always consider the VENN diagram.  

Take the time to talk to others who are actually in this business and job. Don’t take the word of recruiters (they don't really care about you) or the hiring company (you need to feel good about them, but verify their story). Talk to current employees. Look at the financials. Have your CPA friend help you. Check their market position. Always, especially if your job is in sales, make sure you talk to some customers and customers of their competitors at length. Have your most technical friend in the business help you understand the product, whether it works, and whether it has a future. Take your time regardless of the high pressure of having to decide ASAP. Sound good?

Running Your Career as a Business

Work as if you are running your own business. Have virtual  “departments” that handle marketing, sales, finance, R&D, production, distribution, information systems, etc. Make sure you have a plan, processes, and investment (primarily your time) in each functional area of your “business”. Don’t ignore any of them anymore than you would if you were running a business. 

• Marketing and sales are listed first here because many younger people overlook these areas. This advice isn’t aimed at overly aggressive marketing or a “hard sell”. It is merely an attempt to remind you that you need to put some effort into promoting yourself — making sure management knows that you are contributing.

• “Finance” is your budget, making sure you are getting paid equitably, handling your expenses, etc.

• R&D is your investment in learning and increasing your value.

• Production is your work product. Do you add value and make the company more profitable? Do you solve problems and turn them into opportunities?

• Distribution is making sure that your work product is communicated and leveraged. If you have solved a problem or developed a system, do you go the extra mile to let the whole company benefit?

• Information systems is making sure that the power of IT is being used to leverage everything you do and increase your productivity with these tools. Are you doing it the “old fashioned way” or the way that gives you 10X “super powers”? AI anyone?

Free Advice “Tips”

Don’t jump companies because you like a particular manager. He/she can change jobs (inside the company or jumping to a competitor). This happens 50% of the time within 6 months in most industries. (I just made these numbers up based on my own experience -- but think about it.)

Don’t change jobs more than once every five years (on average). You will gain a reputation as someone who is a job-hopper and good companies won’t want you. You can have a few unusual situations, but your average needs to indicate stability. It's easy to explain a few changes, but it soon seems like you just can't get along with anyone.

 Take every opportunity to intern or co-op during your college Summers. Even if they don’t pay you anything, you will learn whether you like this work, you will have experience you can cite on your resume, and you can make contacts who will either serve as references or, best case, want to hire you.

If you want to be an entrepreneur, don’t think of it as a mistake to go to work for a company in the same business first. You will learn a lot. You can make mistakes on someone else’s “dime”. You can make contacts -- especially including possible first customers who will get you started from a revenue and references standpoint. In fact, you may not want to start your own company without at least a few key customers lined up. By working for someone else first, you can save some money that can pay some bills in tough times with your own business.

If you are interested in a career with a company, pick a company headquartered in a place you might want to live. If you do get promotion opportunities, you won’t have to turn them down because your family doesn’t want to go. 

Even if you are working for a company, continue to build your resume in terms of certifications, industry contacts, and skills as if you might have to leave and start your own business at any time. This will make you more valuable to your own company, more interesting to competitors, and more able to go out on your own if you decide to. Don't let your fundamental skills and outside industry contacts wither even if you are doing well within the company because things can change quickly (layoffs, acquisitions, mergers, bankruptcy, technology shift, your mentors leave for a competitor) and you may need to look outside. 

Look at https://www.salary.com/research/salary for additional insight into jobs that are very similar to what you are interested in — but pay 20 to 100% more. (Also use salary.com to determine whether an offer is competitive, by the way.) A simple example might be daycare worker vs elementary school teacher. Another example might be database administrator vs computer system operator. Look into this and find the better paying job where you do essentially the same work.

If you have a specific company in mind, go to their careers or jobs pages and look at the qualifications they have in mind for the job you are interested in. Build your education and experience over the next few years to be a good match.

Work every day as if they have the option of bringing you back, or not, the next day.

 If you are faced with a project, quota, deadline, meeting or team situation you don’t initially prefer, consider it a learning experience. Make a list of five things you can learn and five ways this can be turned into an opportunity. This is the attitude that will pay you great dividends.

 It is much easier to land the next job if you are still employed — especially if employed by a competitor and you are doing a great job.

Summary

 Don’t wait until you are in college to think about your career. “Declaring a major” shouldn’t be the result of a few minutes of thought or trying to figure out what will impress the girls or get your parents off of your back.

 If you are already in a job, see how this advice can help you improve your long term career satisfaction. Don’t quit what you are doing without a plan. Many companies will pay you to go to college at night and get a degree that will allow you to redirect your career.

 You can do the VENN diagram exercise many times, but you need to settle on something and execute because “boldness has power in it” that will transcend being on the exact right path.

 Some say that ‘if you find something you love, you won’t have to work a day in your life’. There is some wisdom in this, but they wouldn’t have to pay anyone to do the job if it was all that pleasant every day. Work is going to involve challenges. Your attitude toward those challenges is going to make a major difference in your satisfaction and success.

Best wishes!