Career Decisions

Career decision making is one of those life areas where there is least synergy between theory and practice. Throughout your career journey, you might be provided with opportunities to move into a number of open roles, you might be so good at your role that you want to develop into a new role that is more challenging perhaps outside your current organisation or into a completely new industry.

Having options is always great, but the big question is -

How will you decide to make the move that best suits you?

Coming up with the right answer is tough, here are two of my ‘go to’ tools to help provide structure and sometimes quantitative analysis that thinking alone doesn’t provide.

S.W.O.T. Analysis*

This tool can be used in both professional or personal areas to boost confidence and allows you to take a step back to self-assess. It involves making a list and so much more, when you start to make a list of your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats – the thought process and research will help prompt you with ideas and possibilities.

How to use the S.W.O.T. analysis:

Draw a a 2x2 grid, with one square for each of the four aspects of S.W.O.T. As you start to analyse, don’t just rely on your own thoughts, instead conduct some research to gather information that would help you make your decision. Let’s look at some questions you might want think about for each quadrant:

Strengths:

•What are your current skills?

•What are your work patterns that brings out your uniqueness?

Weaknesses:

•How long might it take for you to build specific skills?

•What is your level of motivation and commitment to shift into a new job where you need to focus on building your credentials within the first few months into the role?

Opportunities:

•What are the gaps in your current capabilities?

•What industries are thriving in your geographical area?

Threats:

•Who are you competing against in the market?

•What is outside of your comfort zone?

Remember – don’t let yourself become the victim of weaknesses and threats, your strengths is your defined natural ability, use them to help you unlock the best outcome.

Benefits chart (aka pros and cons chart)

This is a very quick and effective way to help make a decision if you don’t want to try anything complex.

Simply grab a sheet of paper, draw a line in the middle. On one side list the ‘benefits if you take the job’ (pros) and on the other side, list the ‘benefits if you don’t take the job’ (cons) .

Practicing something as simple as a benefits chart regularly can help strengthen your decision-making muscles.

If you’re going through the process, you are making progress!

Although I’m a fan of these tools, there is also a number of factors that may influence your career decision making, such as (but not limited to) – interests, skills, values and personality.

Developing the ability to make great decisions is a key part of living a purposeful life.

What factors will make the most difference for you?

*The SWOT analysis was developed by Edmund P. Learned, C. Roland Christiansen, Kenneth Andrews, and William D. Guth in the late 1960. There's a number of online resources about the SWOT analysis, you can easily find a version of SWOT analysis that works for your needs by searching online for tailored templates and resources.