10 Steps for Making a Hard Decision in Your Early Career

10 Steps for Making a Hard Decision in Your Early Career

Making decisions in early career could be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be

What are your career goals? Where do you want to go in your career? What does work mean for you? These are some of the questions that I’ve been thinking about deeply as I was having a hard time deciding which internship to take on for Spring. Before this, I haven’t really thought about how I want my career to play out, what are my career goals, and what skills I want to build, as well as how to make an important life/career decision.

After consulting with friends and mentors who selflessly gave me direction and provided me with insightful advice, here is an article on career & decision making I wish I read when I was faced with the decision a few days ago!

You are faced with a hard career decision, now what?

1. Recognize your emotions before taking any action.

Faced with hard decisions might make you feel overwhelmed and unsure of what to do, so it’s important to take note of how you are feeling to not let your emotion hinder your judgment.

When I was faced with the decision, I felt overwhelmed and immediately jumped on asking the people around me for advice. As I talked to more people, I realized there were common questions people kept on asking me that I haven’t thought through. This made me realized that I should have had an honest conversation with myself before asking for help.

2. Sit down and list all the information you have to see the bigger picture & what could potentially influence your decision making.

During the few days, my decision swayed back and forth between the two options each time I learned a new piece of information I previously didn’t know. I also noticed my opinion was subtly effected by opinions from friends and family, which made me doubt if my feelings are biased.

It’s easy to get lost in the process, so having a record of the information you currently have and information that you don’t know yet could give you a lot of clarity. As more information rolls in, you would start noticing certain factors influence you more.

From there, devise an actionable plan to acquire the important pieces of information you need to know to help you make the decision.

3. Map out how you want to make this decision to keep track of the progress.

I think I had a pretty chaotic decision-making process, and it would have been better had I imposed some structure throughout the process. Mapping out the entire decision-making process involves logging your emotional state, setting deadlines, tackling unknown information, and exploring possible outcomes. This allows us to see the bigger picture and reduces unnecessary stress by having a clear and visualized progress.

Ever since this experience, I’ve started using a “decision journal” to keep track of and learn from important decisions in life (more resources at the end of this article).

4. If you are unsure about which direction to go, figure out your career vision, or North Star.

A career vision could be how you want your career to play out, which industries & roles you’d want to try, what role or position you hope to get, or even a grand mission of solving a world problem. This high-level goal could help you reverse engineer the relevant skills and experiences that you need to acquire to get there, giving you another lens in filtering the opportunities you have.

If you have a good idea of where you want to go career-wise, then it would be easier for you to answer questions like:

  • What job do you want to do post-grad?
  • What type of company and industry do you want to work for?
  • What internship would you want to do for the one after this one?
  • What kind of people do you aspire to become?
  • What important experiences would you like to have?
  • What do I value in the culture of the company?
  • What skills do I have and what skills do I lack?
  • Are there any role models that I look up to?

5. If you don’t know if you’d like the nature of the job, reflect on your past experiences.

Depends on different roles, responsibilities, or industries, what you do varies a lot. For example, a job might require you to talk to multiple stakeholders while the other one might need you to work alone for long hours. Think back on past group projects, clubs, internships, volunteer experiences…etc, and list out the type of work you resonate with and characteristics you value. This filters your opportunities with the lens of knowing what you like & not like.

Do keep in mind sometimes when we don’t like something, there might be multiple factors to consider besides doing that thing, such as our health/emotional state, people we work with, the topic area at hand. So unless you are 90% sure, don’t rule out something if you’ve just had a single experience doing it.

Some questions to get you started:

  • Do you like working alone or with a team?
  • What kind of projects do you usually enjoy?
  • Do you have a clear boundary between life and work?
  • What kind of product or industry interests you more?
  • What kind of work culture & people do I enjoy working with?
  • What do I prioritize (impact, process, teamwork, work-life balance…) when I’m working?

6. If you still don’t know what you want & what you like, keep your options open.

As students and young professionals starting out, a lot of time we might not have the necessary experience to figure out what we like or don’t like. In this case, it would be important to get exposed to more things so we can explore more and learn more about ourselves. The filtering lens here would be “which opportunity has the potential to open new paths for me and expose me to new things?”

In his TEDx Talk and book “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World,” David argues that developing range, which is the combination of knowledge and experience from multiple fields, with late specialization, is more relevant than early specialization in the constantly changing world. So though it might be better to not limit ourselves to a single path, explore what’s out there, and get to know ourselves more early in our careers!

Relevant questions:

  • What other roles do I want to explore?
  • Would I be able to see the bigger picture of how this company operates?
  • Do I want to specialize in this skill or do I still want to explore?
  • How likely would I be able to land a different role after this experience?

7. Find out the key information you need to know to help make the decision by reaching out to people.

As we figured out what we value and what additional information we need to know to make a decision, we should then seek out to those who might have the key information.

People are really helpful when we are genuinely curious about their past experiences and opinion. I reached out to contacts and mentors in the industry, who’ve worked at the company, and who’ve known me for a while, and it was super helpful to learn more information about the companies and their different career paths. I also learned how different people make decisions like this and noticed some common themes (hence writing this article)!

Do keep in mind not to blindly take people’s advice, everyone has different life experiences, values, perspectives, and priorities, so what worked for them might not work for us too. We should use their insights and advice as references because our path would never be identical to someone else’s.

Some questions to ask:

  • What important things do you consider when making a career decision?
  • How did you figure out if you would like the company culture or not?
  • What are your favorite and least favorite aspects of working in this company?
  • What skills do you think you’ve acquired at XXX?
  • How do you view your career journey so far and where would you want to go next?

8. If you still feel conflicted with the options, ask your close friends and people who’ve worked with you before.

Sometimes the closest people around us or past colleagues could provide valuable insights on where they think we’d fit better, as they’ve probably heard us celebrate or complain about certain experiences or aspects of work in the past.

In my case, after asking some close friends about the two options I have, they somehow all “feel like” I should take the same option based on my description and what they think I’d like knowing my values. The same also applies to the people who’ve worked with me in the past.

9. As you’ve gathered the information you needed, what you need then is clarity.

In the book Designing Your Life, Stanford D. School Professor Bill Burnett and Dave Evans explain when it comes to mentors in life, there’s a distinction between “advice” and “counsel.”

“Counsel” is when someone is trying to help you figure out what you think. “Advice” is when someone is telling you what he or she thinks.

I was chatting with a close friend of mine towards the end of this decision-making process, and I noticed throughout the conversation she was just asking a lot of insightful questions and that provided the clarity I needed to arrive to the answer on my own.

A lot of time, the answer is in our mind already, but it’s just clouded by a lot of noise. In that case, we just need someone to help clarify our thoughts through relevant questions.

10. Make the choice and move on!

Harvard Psychology Professor Dan Gilbert ran a study evaluating how people made decisions about different Monet art pieces, and he found out people were less happy and more likely to devalue their choice when they have the ability to reverse their choice. This means that spending time revisiting and agonizing over if the choice is right or not is useless— so let go, move on, and make the most out of that choice!

Summary: when making a career decision early in your career…

1. Recognize your emotions before taking any action.

2. Sit down and list all the information you have to see the bigger picture & what could potentially influence your decision making.

3. Map out how you want to make this decision to keep track of the progress.

4. If you are unsure about which direction to go, figure out your career vision, or North Star.

5. If you don’t know if you’d like the nature of the job, reflect on your past experiences.

6. If you still don’t know what you want & what you like, keep your options open.

7. Find out the key information you need to know to help make the decision by reaching out to people.

8. If you still feel conflicted with the choices, ask your close friends and people who’ve worked with you before.

9. As you’ve gathered the information you needed, what you need then is clarity.

10. Make the choice and move on!

Thanks for reading and feel free to let me know if you have any question or feedback! :)

Also huge shoutout & deepest appreciation to the everyone who chatted with me the past few days!!

Further Resources to Check Out:

Decision making journal & frameworks:

Resources to help you think about your career trajectory & life aspirations: