Jammed? Exploring career options? Five strategies to discover what makes you tick with IE Talent & Careers for Alumni

The decision to pursue more professional qualifications or make a major career move can be overwhelming. That’s why, a few weeks ago, we analyzed the three most typical career crossroads we see in our coaching practice: Career Explorers, Career Advancers and Career Changers.

In this article, we will talk about Career Exploration and offer some helpful strategies to overcome this particular crossroad.

The Career Explorer’s dilemma

At one point or another, we all wonder: is this the life I want to live until I retire? Or, even more daunting, until I die? This is a healthy and valid existential question that implies we’re seeking a change, whether personally or professionally. Arguably, the absence of this self-query may be a sign of stagnation. The opposite, of course, is flourishing, developing and thriving—perhaps in a new career?

If you’ve asked yourself this question, you’re likely a Career Explorer. 

“Typically, this group of professionals is paralyzed by overthinking about how to achieve career fulfillment.”

You may also regularly ask yourself other questions: how do I find what makes me thrive? How do I turn my hobbies or passions into a career? And is this even possible? You can take several approaches to break through the Career Explorer’s dilemma.

Five strategies for success

So how do you discover what makes you tick? What can you do to transform your interests into a viable career?

After extensive hours of career coaching conversations, we’ve come up with the best process to overcome the paralysis-analysis trap that plagues Career Explorers:

1. Do a thorough self-assessment. If we don’t know what we have, how can we know what we can get with it? As a Career Explorer, it’s crucial to pause and look back thoughtfully at your key career milestones. Make a list of all your achievements, and identify the skills that helped you accomplish them. Reflect on what you learned from those experiences and how you felt. There are many tools available to help you explore, such as a Career Time Line and pictorial activities.
2. Identify your “flow” moments. As Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi tells us in his famous book Flow, these are those moments when people experience deep enjoyment, creativity and total engagement with life. How can you recognize them? Keep a journal listing the various activities you had throughout the day and recognize which ones gave you energy or left you feeling drained.
3. Pay attention to context. Another existential career question is, why now? Why am I having this life-defining moment now? Over the years we’ve spent working in career coaching, we’ve noticed that the answer to this question is often linked to the state of your personal life—something worth exploring.
4. Identify possible roles. After exploring your previous career milestones, moments of flow and asking yourself ‘Why now?”, you’re ready to search for companies and professional roles that match your flow moments.
5. Take time for market validation. Doing a reality test of the prevailing career market is crucial. This means talking to people who are already working in roles similar to what you’re searching for. Ask about their day-to-day routines, long-term objectives and the professional challenges they have faced—you can learn a lot from studying their career paths. This exercise will also help you visualize yourself in that particular role.

At some point in your career exploration, you’ll find yourself in what we call “the miserable middle.” You’ll feel that you aren’t getting the answers you’re looking for and that maybe the whole process is a waste of time. It is important to remember that these mixed feelings are a part of the journey. Just relax and keep moving; in the end, you will find the right career path for you.

Delivering continuous learning

For Career Explorers, understanding your goals and motivations is the key to finding the compass for your professional life. If you’re at a career crossroads, our simple, five-step methodology will lead you to what you need to do to get unstuck.

IE Talent & Careers also offers plenty of resources to help our alumni optimize their professional growth, including our upcoming Highly Effective Job Search course, which will help you find the perfect role for your profile.

Turn exploration into discovery: click here to register for the course.

By Ana Herranz and Dr. Veronica Azua