Career Decisions By Design

I’ve been struggling.

What’s next for my career? What do I want to do? Where can I contribute the most value? Where can I get the best compensation for the best contribution?

Have you been in this spot before?

This is a first-world struggle for sure, but it’s important to me, and so, I suspect it’s important for many other folks out there as well. Whether you’re searching for what’s next in your career path, your options for advancement within an existing organization, or simply trying to weigh out some fairly complex variables around a big decision, it’s really tough to find clarity and thoughtfulness when faced with a such an emotionally charged challenge.

So I decided to just dive in and apply some design thinking basics to the challenge and came up with a decision-making process that has helped. This exercise can begin to bring clarity and order to the multiple variables swirling around the decision you have to make. 

In framing the exercise, create a simple matrix with the various options in the vertical column (for me, this was the most relevant companies/career opportunities currently being considered) and the critical decision criteria in the horizontal column. These criteria are the tricky bit. They’re very personal and should address authentic needs or desires associated with the options in the vertical column. In addition, I weighted the criteria on what was most important to me (limiting those to three), we’ll call those Tier 1, and then what was secondary, Tier 2. I forced a limit of three of the Tier 1 criteria to avoid the decision paralysis, but you may have more.

Then I got to work and rated each opportunity (vertical column) against each personal criteria (horizontal column) on a scale from 1-5. 1 = Hell No! 5 = Hell Yes! Most of the opportunities in front of me are viable for my career, so there are very few 1’s or 2’s

The personal criteria are the key to this exercise being manful and driving clarity. Here is what I chose with some additional detail for clarification (plus the tier designation for scoring at the end of the exercise):

TIER 1

Will I Love This? — Is this a position/job for which I will leap out of bead every day, tell (brag, really) to all my friends about, and would want to do for as long as possible. (T1A)

People, Connected Work — I’m a classic extrovert, and one of my biggest strengths is making connections with and for people. For me, working in a culture that provides those opportunities is critical. (T1B)

Balance With Family — My family is critical to me. Being around, available, and supportive of what they need and want rounds out the three top personal criteria. (T1C)

TIER 2

If I Ended My Career Today — This was a very thought-provoking ask from my friend and colleague, Holly Noto: if you had this new opportunity and suddenly your career ended, would you be happy with that as the final chapter? It makes you think. (T2A)

Variety/Travel — How much variety in clients, types of projects, creative thinking, and varied countries/cities would be involved? (T2B)

Style of Work — Will I get to connect with the human side of innovation, engage in creative value, design thinking, digital UI/UX, human-centered design, teaching, and selling all of these wonderful ideas and concepts? (T2C)

Compensation — Will there be total compensation for total contribution. Is there room to grow? Is the salary appropriate for my years of experience, background, education, T-shaped persona, and quick (some say humorous) wit? (T2D)

TIER 3 

Risk — What is the level of risk associated with the company, the market, the position with the organization, any existing contracts/agreements, etc (T3A)

One I completed the matrix (see attached photo), I added up the numbers (applying the weighted averages) for each opportunity and took the average to get an overall score. For the Tier 1 criteria, I doubled their impact by including them twice in the measurement. Take Row 1 as an example:

Tier 1 Scores — (T1A + T1B + T1X ) / X = T1    (5+4+5)/3 = 4.67

Tier 2 Scores — (T2A + T2B + T2X ) / X = T2  (5+4+5+4)/4 = 4.5

Tier 3 Scores — T3A  = 2 (which means a higher risk, thus a lower score)

Total —  (T1 + T1 + T2 + T3 ) / 4 = Final Score (14.67 + 4.67 + 4.5 + 2)/4 = 3.96 (approximately 4)

(Notice I weighted the Tier 1 criteria by counting them twice)

FINAL SCORE — 4

After you score all your opportunities, you can stack-rank them which will highlight which ones are the best options for you in the long-term and which will be the most meaningful. This should give you some clarity on where to focus your efforts. 

I'm still sorting through my results and deciding how to approach my top-scoring options. Of my top three results, two were expected, but one broke through as an underdog. It was a clear indication that I had been approaching these options emotionally and some design thinking really helped me gain some rational clarity. Give this framework a try and let me know what you think. All modifications and suggestions are welcome!