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My typical career counseling client has a bachelor’s degree but doesn’t know what career to pursue. Often, they’re interested in many things but no one career stands out. Or their abilities aren’t specific enough to suggest a career path.
For example, they know they’re intelligent, or sociable, or detail-oriented, or artistic, but that doesn’t sufficiently narrow the options. Or their interests are shared by so many people—non-profit work, entertainment, the media, fashion, sports, or the arts—that it’s hard to find a decent-paying job in those fields.
Best practice would be to be thorough, per my book, Careers for Dummies. But I thought you might find it useful to know what such people end up doing in practice, the shortcuts they tend to take. They do one of these:
Leverage family and friend connections. Typically, these people, having explored some career options, conclude that none are sufficiently appealing to justify turning down a career-launching job that's dropped in their lap. For example, a parent gets their child an interview at their workplace or offers a job in the family business.
These people decide that that job may be as good or better than what they could come up with on their own. And they’re often right. While a small percentage of people have only one career that is quintessentially right for them, most people’s career success will depend more on attributes that exist across many careers: whether the work is moderately challenging, a good boss, a reasonable commute, decent pay, and job security. And jobs like that disproportionately go to people with an “in.” That’s especially true for new grads with a bachelor’s of arts (B.A.) degree. Unlike job applicants with significant experience in a field such as data science or molecular biology, few employers salivate at the just-graduated, middle-of-the-pack B.A. in psychology, sociology, gender studies, ethnic studies, art, dance, music, filmmaking, etc.
Under-the-radar careers. Occasionally, but less often than I would have thought, these people find a career they wouldn’t have thought of that appeals enough for them to pursue. Typically, it’s some amalgam of their skills and interests, for example, grant writer, child-life specialist, or patent searcher.
Narrow only slightly. They don’t pick a career but scan job sites such as Indeed.com and apply to any job that feels okay—generally something that matches their broad core strength: words, people, or numbers. Generally, that works only when the client is willing to apply to lots of jobs and customize their resume and cover letter for each. That’s because new B.A.s rarely have enough successful, marketable experience to often make their application #1 among the dozens or hundreds of applications for most decent, openly advertised, entry-level professional jobs that don’t require substantial technical expertise.
Go to graduate school. Perhaps after making some attempt to land a job, they choose to spend the time and money on grad school: for example, law school, an MBA, a Ph.D. in computer science, a master's in public policy, or some less top-of-mind field such as optometry or landscape architecture. They like that grad school offers a structured path that ostensibly increases hireability. Also, grad school is a socially acceptable way to avoid looking for a job—being a student, you’re taking (getting to learn new things) and only periodically need to produce something, for example, a paper, whereas at work, you have to produce day in and day out.
Continue to flounder. Some of them don’t feel the urgency to find a career. Their parents, partner, and/or the taxpayers support them. Or they’re willing to live very modestly and so are okay, literally or figuratively, with being a barista. Many of these people have artistic sensibilities but have insufficient talent and/or drive to beat the odds of making a living from their creative output. Some of such people feel that’s just a stage and will get serious later, but others decide it's a good long-term choice: having a mundane job so they have the time to pursue their creative passion.
How about you? As you review those approaches, would the Wise One within you choose the aforementioned best practice or one of the shorter-cut approaches I describe here? If so, what’s the next baby step you want to take?
I read this aloud on YouTube.
