One of the challenges I run into with people as we’re talking about what they might want to do next in their professional lives is this: We don’t actually know very much about the kinds of jobs that exist out there in the world.
We’re also facing a lack of familiarity with all the different things a given company or organization will need in order to fulfill their mission.
So, for instance, we’ll think an accounting firm only hires accountants, or chefs only work at restaurants, or fitness people only work at gyms.
But really, that accounting firm needs lawyers and writers and marketers and techies and coders and managers and business strategists and HR professionals and office people to make the day-to-day go.
Chefs work in restaurants, sure, but they also work in hotels, and airlines, and food manufacturers, and big companies, and for high-net-worth individuals. Fitness people work for gyms, and individuals, and companies, and hotels, and hospitals, and rehabilitation centers.
In other words, there are two separate but related pieces to figuring out what you want comes next: the kind of work you want to do, and the kind of organization in which you want to do it.
It’s easy to conflate them
Because many jobs have an industry that goes with them, it’s easy to conflate the two. But what happens then is that I hear people say things like, well, I want to do the work of consulting, but I hate all the consulting firms. Or, I love higher-level math, but I’d shoot myself in the head if I had to do actuarial stuff.
People dismiss the work they would love to do because they have a limited understanding of the contexts in which they could do that work.
The reality is that there are very few jobs that have only one context, one industry, one type of organization in which they exist. In fact, as I’m sitting here trying to think of some, I’m coming up blank.
So if you really don’t think a giant for-profit is for you, then look for something small and quirky. If you don’t think government work is for you, check out non-profits. If you hate suits and cubicles, look for a company that lets you go to work in jeans and flip-flops or that lets you work from home or whatever.
Whatever you want to do, chances are there’s a position out there in an organization you’d love to work for. The trick is figuring out both parts – what you want to do and where you’d like to do it – so that you can go out looking for that position.
Figuring out what you might like to do and where you might like to do it is some of what Jo VanEvery and I cover in our Choosing Your Career Consciously course. We’re starting another round of this 6-week course on June 12 – click here to learn more.
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