You Can’t Choose What You Don’t Know Exists

Most of us begin thinking about careers with a relatively short list.

We know the jobs we see regularly. Teachers, doctors, nurses, business owners, coaches, engineers, lawyers, and whatever the adults around us happen to do. As we get older, that list expands, but our understanding of the working world is still shaped heavily by what we have been exposed to.  How are you supposed to choose a direction when you don't know most of your options exist?

Think about professional sports. When we watch a game, we see athletes, coaches, broadcasters, and referees. Behind that experience are hundreds of people working in operations, marketing, finance, analytics, ticketing, partnerships, facilities, technology, nutrition, media production, community engagement, legal services, and dozens of other areas.

Someone could love sports, have absolutely no interest in becoming an athlete or coach, and still build an entire career within the industry. You find the same thing almost everywhere.

A hospital needs far more than doctors and nurses. A construction company needs people beyond the job site. A technology company isn't staffed entirely by software engineers. Schools need professionals whose work has little to do with standing in front of a classroom.

Industries are ecosystems. Once you start viewing them that way, career research becomes much more interesting.

Instead of searching, "What career should I have?" start with something that already has your attention. It could be sports, healthcare, fashion, transportation, food, education, technology, entertainment, construction, or something completely different. Then start pulling on the thread.

Who are the organizations doing interesting work in that space? How do they make money or serve their communities? Who works there? What departments exist? What problems are those teams responsible for solving?

Open an organization's careers page and ignore the job openings you already recognize. Look at the unfamiliar ones. Read what those people actually do. Search for someone with that role and look at the experiences that helped them get there.

One question will usually create three more. The Design phase isn't asking you to select a destination immediately. It is asking you to start building a better map.

The introspection work you've already done gives you something to bring into that process. You know more about what interests you, the skills you enjoy using, what matters to you, and the environments where you tend to operate well.

Now you can start looking for where those things exist in the world. You may discover careers you had never considered because nobody had ever introduced you to them.

For now, resist the urge to narrow your options too quickly. Explore the ecosystem first. You can decide where you want to go once you have a better idea of what's actually out there.

Reflection Questions of the Week:

• Which roles do you immediately associate with those industries?
• What organizations could you research to discover some of the less visible work happening behind them?
• Where might your existing skills or interests fit within an industry you already enjoy?
• What is one role you've recently discovered that you didn't know existed before?