The main finding is: Career choices are important and they are challenging due to trade-offs and uncertainties. See Figure 1 for a distribution of the decisions by category. The decisions are listed in Figure 2.
Besides uncertainty in consequences, five other aspects that were found challenging are uncertainty in preferences, timing, clarifying objectives and specifying alternatives. In this post you find more about my thoughts on these and what to do about them.
Two examples are:
“Because I can't really figure out the consequences. What happens if I take a job I don't like? How will it limit my future decisions?”
“Uncertainty definitely. It's impossible to see all the consequences of the decision, and its impact on practically every aspect of my life."
It seems natural that uncertainty is felt as the main challenge in important personal decisions. The decisions such as where to work will have long lasting effects in one’s life which are very difficult to predict. To analyze this, I make a distinction between three types of sources for the uncertainty.
First is lack of knowledge. It simply means that we often do not have all the information we would like to have. For example, we may only have a vague idea about what the everyday life would be in some profession.
Second is chance. For example, the job opportunities available at the time when we start looking for a job are, from our perspective, determined simply by luck.
Thirdly, there is complexity and path dependence. Due to complexity of the world, the long-term consequences of our actions will be very difficult to predict. This is because the effects of our actions, e.g. in 10 years from now, can be propagated many times, each propagation accumulating more and more uncertainty.
Path dependence refers to the idea that each time we make a choice we narrow the number of possibilities we will have in the future. What is more, especially the ‘small’ decisions we make at the start of the path can have huge consequences on what we will end up with. The respondents of this survey were mostly young people and the important decisions were mostly related to career and education. The impacts of these decisions in their lives are large because each choice can set their lives on very different paths.
Suggestions for dealing with uncertainty:
Second, much of the uncertainty we just have to accept. The world is very complex and we just cannot know the consequences of our actions very precisely. However, depending on your attitude towards uncertainty, you can try to pursue different kinds of paths. For example, teacher or medical doctor career paths are much more predictable than a business major’s.
Then there is stress related to uncertainty. A systematic procedure for making the decision properly might help at alleviating this. Here is an outline of (an untested) step-by-step procedure for dealing with uncertainty in personal decisions:
Not knowing what I want.
Two examples are.
Even if we would know the consequences of our actions the uncertainty related to which alternative we like the best can remain. It is often the case that given the limited possibilities we have for doing things, we cannot get all that we would want to have. Therefore, we have to make trade-offs. For example, if both, husband and wife, want to have great careers, then they cannot have many kids and spend lot of time with them.
A related point is that studies on 'affective forecasting' by professor Daniel Gilbert suggest that people are generally not very good at predicting how happy they will be when they get something.
Suggestion:
Timing
This example reflects an interesting topic of ‘knowing when to quit’, however, I will not discuss it here. The related topic of delaying a decisions was discussed in earlier post of mine.
Clarifying objectives
In my own experience it is quite easy to fall into the trap of thinking that I know what I want when I really don’t. This happens because it is easy to think shallowly about a topic and come up with general objectives and characterizations of good solutions. For example, it is easy to say that I want a job which is fun. However, if you have to figure out which is the most fun job without trying them, it gets trickier. It should help you to think of what are the constituents of ‘fun’. How would you describe fun? What makes a job fun?
Being precise about your objectives can also help to reduce uncertainty. For example, if you figure out that the most important determinant of fun is colleagues, then it might be a good idea to find out about what kind of people are working in different places.
In both of these cases the decision problem was very open-ended. My suggestion is to continue by clarifying what are the important objectives for the decision. In general, I believe that starting with objectives allows for more creativity regarding the means to achieve these objectives. After the objectives are clear you can start asking yourself how to achieve them.
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| Figure 1: Distribution of the decisions in categories. Categorization based on my judgment. |
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| Decisions people are facing in 2015. |
Three types of uncertainty and what should we do about them?
The strongest pattern found in the results is that people feel that one of the main challenges in their decision problems is the uncertainty related to consequences. Uncertainty was mentioned in 14 out of 22 responses.
Two examples are:
“Because I can't really figure out the consequences. What happens if I take a job I don't like? How will it limit my future decisions?”
“Uncertainty definitely. It's impossible to see all the consequences of the decision, and its impact on practically every aspect of my life."
It seems natural that uncertainty is felt as the main challenge in important personal decisions. The decisions such as where to work will have long lasting effects in one’s life which are very difficult to predict. To analyze this, I make a distinction between three types of sources for the uncertainty.
First is lack of knowledge. It simply means that we often do not have all the information we would like to have. For example, we may only have a vague idea about what the everyday life would be in some profession.
Second is chance. For example, the job opportunities available at the time when we start looking for a job are, from our perspective, determined simply by luck.
Thirdly, there is complexity and path dependence. Due to complexity of the world, the long-term consequences of our actions will be very difficult to predict. This is because the effects of our actions, e.g. in 10 years from now, can be propagated many times, each propagation accumulating more and more uncertainty.
Path dependence refers to the idea that each time we make a choice we narrow the number of possibilities we will have in the future. What is more, especially the ‘small’ decisions we make at the start of the path can have huge consequences on what we will end up with. The respondents of this survey were mostly young people and the important decisions were mostly related to career and education. The impacts of these decisions in their lives are large because each choice can set their lives on very different paths.
Suggestions for dealing with uncertainty:
First of all, our efforts should be focused in what we can influence. In this case, it is the knowledge that we have. There are many ways to increase knowledge. For example, to search for information online, contact people who work in a certain profession, think about the megatrends (what skills will be required in the future) etc. I am sure you will come up with many ideas!
Second, much of the uncertainty we just have to accept. The world is very complex and we just cannot know the consequences of our actions very precisely. However, depending on your attitude towards uncertainty, you can try to pursue different kinds of paths. For example, teacher or medical doctor career paths are much more predictable than a business major’s.
Then there is stress related to uncertainty. A systematic procedure for making the decision properly might help at alleviating this. Here is an outline of (an untested) step-by-step procedure for dealing with uncertainty in personal decisions:
1. Accept that you will not be able to obtain precise knowledge about the consequences of your actions. All you can do is your best.
2. Do your best.
3. Figure out what you want in life (such as salary, career development, prestige, fun etc.).
4. Figure out how you could achieve that (possible actions/alternatives)
5. Make an effort to reduce the uncertainty. Go through the list of alternatives and think how you could better estimate it’s consequences with respect to your objectives. For example if an alternative is “to apply for a job in a bank” and objective is “fun”, then it might help if you contacted a person who works at a bank and asked what are his daily routines like. This might help you to figure out if the work is fun for you.
Not knowing what I want.
Another type of uncertainty expressed in the responses was uncertainty related to one’s preferences. This was mentioned as a challenge in 8 out of 22 cases.
Two examples are.
“Would I be satisfied with a well-paying job with no intellectual stimulation or should I aim for something ambitious?”
“The problem is that I am not yet sure what kind of research I want to do, or whether I really even want to stay in the academia.”
“The problem is that I am not yet sure what kind of research I want to do, or whether I really even want to stay in the academia.”
Even if we would know the consequences of our actions the uncertainty related to which alternative we like the best can remain. It is often the case that given the limited possibilities we have for doing things, we cannot get all that we would want to have. Therefore, we have to make trade-offs. For example, if both, husband and wife, want to have great careers, then they cannot have many kids and spend lot of time with them.
A related point is that studies on 'affective forecasting' by professor Daniel Gilbert suggest that people are generally not very good at predicting how happy they will be when they get something.
Suggestion:
Accept that you have to make trade-offs. Think about what are the like consequences of your alternatives with respect to your objectives. Focus on the difference of the alternatives. What will A give you more than B and vice versa. Choose the one you like best and after you have taken action, do not look back.
Timing
Timing was mentioned in 3 out of 22 responses. One example is: “It is about timing. When and if to accept defeat and move on.”
This example reflects an interesting topic of ‘knowing when to quit’, however, I will not discuss it here. The related topic of delaying a decisions was discussed in earlier post of mine.
Clarifying objectives
Challenges related to knowing one’s objectives were mentioned in two responses. One example is: “I don't know -- what are the features in a phone that I really need”.
In my own experience it is quite easy to fall into the trap of thinking that I know what I want when I really don’t. This happens because it is easy to think shallowly about a topic and come up with general objectives and characterizations of good solutions. For example, it is easy to say that I want a job which is fun. However, if you have to figure out which is the most fun job without trying them, it gets trickier. It should help you to think of what are the constituents of ‘fun’. How would you describe fun? What makes a job fun?
Being precise about your objectives can also help to reduce uncertainty. For example, if you figure out that the most important determinant of fun is colleagues, then it might be a good idea to find out about what kind of people are working in different places.
Specifying actions
Challenges related to specifying actions were mentioned in two responses. Two examples are: “How it should be done”, “Deciding what will I do and how. “
In both of these cases the decision problem was very open-ended. My suggestion is to continue by clarifying what are the important objectives for the decision. In general, I believe that starting with objectives allows for more creativity regarding the means to achieve these objectives. After the objectives are clear you can start asking yourself how to achieve them.
I would love to indulge in my passion as a career, but then the sustainability to me doesn't make sense. If I can get a job where I can sustain my passion outside of work, whilst being able to sustain myself, I don't see why not.
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That is a common dilemma. Regarding career options I think it is naturally important to consider both your passions and your strengths and skills. Where can those meet? Decent work + sustain passion outside of work can be a good solution too. I think main point is realizing what you want and doing what you can to be there. The effort of actually doing I feel is often the tricky part ;). My practical advice is to really figure out what are the sources of your passion and why. Maybe it helps you find some good solutions.
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