How to Make Career Decisions

I've been teaching a career management course for 30 years, first at HBS and then here at the Darden School, UVA. I'm surprised at how important career decisions are to people and at how little rigor they bring to those decisions. The result is a modified trial-and-error methodology that unfortunately leads to current statistics of something like 5-8 career changes for most graduating MBAs. People use a variety of techniques for making career decisions: serendipity, opportunistic, creation, and peer pressure. Given the high proportion of habitual behavior among most people, a matching approach seems to be the obvious best approach. By matching approach, I mean making decisions based on goodness of fit between personal habits or enduring life themes and the demands of any particular job, career or organizational culture.

The problem is that most people don't know themselves well enough and in enough detail to make a good decision based on goodness of fit between themselves and the demands of a job. Well, you might say, I know myself well. Really? What are your habitual ways of thinking? How do you prefer to process information? What's your preferred social structure and style? Have you analyzed your preferred lifestyle? What about your analytic skills? Energy level? Biochemical brain balances leading to or away from ADD, OCD, BPD, etc.? The danger with any degree of self awareness is what we might call "benign self deception." If you make career decisions based on your momentary reflections of who you are and what you want, be careful! You may overlook some key factors (habits or themes) in your life that will surface after you've taken the job--and then you'll be looking again.

Those who make career decisions on a rigorous self assessment are likely to make better decisions than those who don't. So then the question is, "how can I get a good self assessment to use in my career search and decision making?" There are thousands of self assessment tools out there, some of them trash and some of them quite helpful. But consider this premise: no single instrument is accurate enough or comprehensive enough to give you confidence in making career decisions.

There are just too many variables to consider in one instrument and too many variables in the answering of the questionnaire items to trust your career future or even a part of it to one instrument. The answer is to take several self assessment tools and look for the repeating patterns or themes or the tips of iceberg habits that appear across instruments. This requires some time and effort and some skill at inductive logic (looking at the data and generating the principles). Too much time and effort your say? Compare that with the cost of time and effort in working in a job that doesn't fit you and then doing it all over again in 1-3 years. Why not invest up front and narrow your career search to the band of jobs that would likely fit you better?

My colleagues and I have ported the text I used (and was the lead author on--Self Assessment and Career Development) to the web to offer this kind of service. You can preview it at www.CareerNextStep.com. There are more than a dozen instruments there for you to use in your search for a rigorous listing of your career defining personal characteristics. But whether you use Career Next Step or not, whenever you approach your next major personal or professional decision, please, consider carefully (preferably data-based) your dominant Life Themes (cognitive, interpersonal, social, professional, etc.) before you decide. If you choose ignoring them, the odds are you'll be unhappy and be making the same decision again shortly. Save yourself a boat load of time and effort by investing in a good self assessment up front.

Living with Bilateral Quadriceps Tendon Tears and Repairs

This POST is intended as a forum for those who have or have had bilateral quadriceps tears (and subsequent repairs). You can post here or e-mail me at JimClawson@virginia.edu . My new friend, Jim Falvo, has also had this. Here's Jim Falvo's Amazing Story .

(The short introduction) On 9/2/06, I was descending a flight of stairs in Istanbul, Turkey, and both my legs gave away. I heard a distinct "pop, pop, pop" in both legs as they collapsed. The next day, MRI's confirmed the diagnosis, bi-lateral quadriceps tears. It was very painful, terrifying, and confusing since I had no sense of weakness, fatigue, or advance warning. Getting home from Istanbul was a grueling experience made possible by a generous client and the warm flight attendant staff on a Delta flight. Since then I've learned that this is a relatively rare event; the first surgery on bilateral quadriceps ruptures (BQRs) was only done in 1949, two years after I was born. If you've had or are in the middle of a BQR event, I hope my experience here will help you. And if you're willing, I hope you'll write and share your experience with me and others. I couldn't find any blogs on-line that covered this kind of experience. So I wrote a "BLIARY" (non-interactive) which if you want more details and recovery history, you can find at:

http://faculty.darden.virginia.edu/clawsonj/HTML%20DATA%20and%20LINKs/Bilateral_Quad_Tear_Blog.htm

If you've had a BLQT, I hope you'll share your experience with Jim Falvo and me. Cheers.