Answering the Question: “What Do I Want?”
A methodology to define what your “dream” job looks like
A career, much like life, is not a straight line.
I’ve experienced both the joy and agony of discovering this truth ever since I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from university more than a couple of decades ago.
If you’ve had a long enough career, you probably would have seen at least one career pivotal moment/period in your lifetime. I can identify no less than three such pivotal periods in my own career.
My toughest challenge during these pivotal periods has always been to answer the question, “What do I want?”
I am sure that I’m not alone in this. Maybe you are trying to answer this question right now. Maybe you’re
- a young university student about to enter the workforce in a year and not sure that the field you are studying is the right one for you.
- a person in mid-career who’s thinking about how they don’t like where they are now, but don’t know where they’d like to be.
- in your mid-50s and wondering what you’re going to do to keep busy and fulfilled in your 60s and beyond.
Today, I would like to share a methodology that helped me answer that question. It might help you or someone you care about. What I’m about to convey to you is a derivative of a methodology that comes from a book I read about 3 years after my bachelor’s degree— “What Color Is Your Parachute?”.
Quick Rundown of the Methodology
I won’t be able to do this methodology any justice by trying to fit every detailed step into this short article format. Instead, I provide a high-level overview of the methodology with some highlighted points to maximize value.
0. Success Stories
This is not a dream job dimension, per se, but it is the first and probably most critical step to execute in this entire methodology. A success story details how someone overcame a challenge and obtained a result that brought value. The structure is as follows:
- State the problem or challenge.
- Detail the steps that were taken to address the problem or overcome the challenge. Include details like which tools or instruments were used, the sequence of steps, interactions with people (if any).
- State the result obtained from the steps taken.
- State the value derived from the effort (or journey) and result.
A success story should give its writer a great sense of satisfaction and fulfillment after they read it. The success is theirs to celebrate.
Success stories are the foundation for analysis on the 6 dream job dimensions listed below. Therefore, it is recommended to write at least 7 stories to provide enough data to work with down the road… and to build self-confidence!
1. Skills
Each person has a unique mix of physical skills (e.g. sculpting, assembling, crafting, etc.), mental skills (e.g. gathering data, seeing patterns, presenting data), and interpersonal skills (e.g. listening, dialog 1:1, public speaking).
A quick internet search can provide a list of skills that can be used in cross-reference with the 7 success stories from the previous step. The skills that pop up the most from the success stories are typically the skills that we like to use the most. Subsequently, the skills that we like to use the most are often the skills we tend to be good at.
2. Working Conditions
For the purpose of this methodology, working conditions pertain to those conditions which a person feels are necessary to make the job functional for them but also help to enhance chances of being fulfilled by the job. Some examples are:
- Leadership works together rather than in silos
- Opportunities to grow are abundant, both laterally and vertically
- Above average health and dental coverage
- Commute between home and work is no more than 20 mins one way on average
As seen in the examples above, this list can be a mix of both hygiene and motivational factors.
After listing out the working conditions in any order, follow up with ranking them in order of most important to least important. Later on in your job hunt, companies that meet at least the top 5 will make the cut.
3. People Environment
The dimension of people environment is somewhat of a subset of working conditions. The focus here is on work culture. There are 6 types:
- S = people who are bent on trying to help, teach, or serve people.
- E = people who like to start up projects or organizations, and/or influence or persuade people.
- I = people who are very curious, liking to investigate, or analyze things.
- C = people who like detailed work, and like to complete tasks or projects.
- R = people who like nature, or athletics, or tools and machinery.
- A = people who are very artistic, imaginative, and innovative.
The exercise here is to rank the people environment types in order of most preferred to least preferred. Another quick look at the success stories written earlier might reveal certain preferences.
Knowing which environments are preferred helps to narrow down the list of companies and locations that might be of interest to work for. For example, companies that meet at least the top 3 environment types might make your shortlist.
4. Interests
Interests should be relatively easy to list. These are activities and/or hobbies that people like (and spend most of their time) doing. Interests need not be restricted to activities outside of work. Sometimes there are things that people do in their jobs that also happen to be interesting to them. For example, I like to coach in a business environment.
As with the previously mentioned dimensions, once interests are listed out they need to be prioritized in order of most important to least important. This is a critical step because the dream job needs to be able to do one of two things:
- Incorporate the interest into the job itself (e.g. coaching / mentoring) OR
- Provide a working schedule that respects the person’s ability to make time for the interest of it is non-job-related (e.g. health and fitness, spending time with family).
5. Values
In my opinion, the most important of all the dimensions is our values. While interests change with time, our core values remain relatively unchanged throughout our lifetime once they are set in early childhood. By knowing our core values and making decisions based on them, there will likely be little regret even if the result of those decisions doesn’t turn out to be what we intended.
A list of core values can be generated after some honest reflection on the success stories and analysis on the four previously mentioned dimensions. Again, ranking in order of most important to least important is key here because the dream job needs:
- To be able to allow you to follow those values AND
- To be in an environment that doesn’t violate those values.
6. Compensation
The focus of the dimension of compensation is to determine a personally comfortable salary range.
Start with calculating a dollar amount that reflects an average month of expenses. Multiply by 12. Add a buffer that includes one-off or contingency expenses. Add 1 or 2% for a margin of error. The total is the minimum salary that is needed to make the dream job feasible. This is the bottom limit of a desired salary range. Note this figure can be different from the lower end of the range that the market may be willing to pay.
The top part of the range is the best guess maximum salary that can be obtained for the dream job, whatever that is in the job market. That’s the figure that can be stated if the hiring manager won’t give their own salary expectations first during negotiation.
Putting It All Together
Once the exercise is complete, it’s good to take a step back and look at the pieces assembled as a whole. The result is a picture of you — what you think is important, what you are good at, what your values are. While landing the dream job is the ultimate goal, the introspective journey to get to this point already brings great value to you.
One thing you may find at the end of this exercise is that there might not be a straightforward label (e.g. teacher, lawyer, doctor, etc.) for the dream job package. I know I struggled with that. However, at least now you can articulate what you want.
Even if there might not be an exact match right now for what you would consider a dream job, landing a job that matches most of what you’ve outlined by following this methodology will bring you close enough. Hopefully, that job will bring you the joy and fulfillment you seek.
Please let me know if you or someone you care about tries this methodology. I’d love to hear about it!
Want to transform your life?
