One aspect of the “career navigation process” that I really struggle to empathize with others over is the idea of choosing an occupation based on role versus content. I think that I am biased towards “product-based companies,” so I think perhaps more than others about the output of my work. That being said, at least for a second try to leverage my lens in thinking about “careers.”
Many of us say we want to be “consultants” or we want to be “financial analysts” or “software engineers.” So we study Finance or Marketing or Computer Science in school and optimize for finding a role in the “consulting world” or “finance world.”
Try this idea.
Why not optimize for area you want to impact. Like are you passionate about the financial world? Or the financial role? Are you passionate about healthcare or are you passionate about consulting for healthcare? And then working backwards to try and figure out how you can impact the world of healthcare…not necessarily by optimizing for the role of your job but rather the content of your work.
I think content is underratedly important and a big reason that people become upset post graduation. There is a big expectation problem when it comes to the interesting-ness of the content and people become depressed or jaded when they realize the content is lackluster.
Also published on Medium.