Making the perfect career decision

I’ve given this advice many times to people evaluating a potential career move, or frustrated in some way with their current situation. I of course also use it myself.

I have three simple rules to guide you in making the best decision you can make.

1. Don’t evaluate a single job compared to your current job. It’s too easy for the grass to seem greener, or to be fixated on a particularly shiny object, only to find out down the road that you didn’t think things through and made a mistake. Compare the attributes of potential opportunities.
2. Think hard about what you do, and don’t want, or need, in your perfect job. Write them down. Use that full list of attributes to evaluate and compare options, including your current role.
3. Since you’re going to all this trouble to create a list of what the aspects of a perfect role are, take the opportunity to spread your wings and cast a wider net, to find the best opportunity possible! Find and compare multiple opportunities. Create in your mind the best possible job, and now see how close you can get to finding it!

To accomplish the above, create two lists. I use columns in a spreadsheet. The first list is positives, it’s all the attributes you need or want to have in a job. Sort this list from most critical (absolute must have showstoppers) to strong preferences to weak likes. Bonus points if you quantify each aspect, such as 1 to 10 on importance to you.

Sample attributes on your lists might include: Aspects of company culture, things you’d like to have in your manager, coworkers, and team, particular technologies, impact of your results, the size and stage of the company, the industry it’s in, different aspects of compensation and benefits, location, etc.

Now create a second list. It’s the negatives, all the things you DON’T want. Some will be the inverse of items in the first list. That’s ok. Maybe you end up with a laundry list of all the things that have frustrated you in the past. That’s ok too. Now sort this list also, again from the absolute showstoppers, down to weak dislikes.

You now have an objective template to use for objectively evaluating different opportunities. It will help you craft your job search, your discussions with your network, a mission statement on your resume, the questions you ask in informationals and interviews, etc.

Use the list to narrow in on the most valuable opportunities, and filter out those that might seem interesting, but aren’t really the right fit for you. Maybe in the end you’ll discover that staying in your current role is actually the best choice, but you’ll feel better knowing that you’ve made an objective decision.

Keep the list around, and update it whenever it makes sense. Now, if opportunity comes knocking, you’ll know whether or not to answer the door.