How to Make Informed Career Choices: Push and Pull Factors Explained
SUMMARY
Navigating the job market and making career choices can feel overwhelming. However, by understanding the factors that influence our decision-making process, we can make informed choices and effectively communicate our motivations during interviews. In this article, we will explore the common push and pull factors that impact our career decisions, and share insights on making optimal choices for our individual career trajectories.
WHY DO YOU WANT TO LEAVE?
During the initial interview round, recruiters tend to ask a set of questions that helps them understand candidates’ motivations. Some of these questions include, "What motivates you to apply for this position?" or "What are your career aspirations, and how does this job align with them?" These are pull factors that help recruiters understand your interest in the position. In addition, recruiters may also ask push factors like, "What prompted you to look for new opportunities?" or "What are you hoping to gain from a new role that you're not getting in your current position?" These questions can help recruiters understand your current situation and what you're seeking from your next job. For experienced hires, recruiters may also inquire about your previous job experiences. They might ask questions like, "Why did you leave your previous company?" or "What motivated you to join your previous company?" These questions can provide insight into your career motivations, what drives you, and whether there's a pattern in your decision-making process.
There are some of the most common push factors I have encountered in my conversations with professionals:
Limited opportunities to learn or do something new after being in the role for an extended period of time.
Feeling like they have hit a ceiling and that there are limited opportunities for upward mobility within their current company.
Feeling like the work is repetitive and lacks a sense of fulfillment
Disagreements with the leadership team's direction, particularly during a recent company reorganization.
Projects being cancelled or not aligning with their interests or career goals.
Disliking their manager's leadership style or experiencing a lack of autonomy in decision-making.
Working in a toxic culture that negatively impacts their work environment.
High travel frequency or work intensity that makes it difficult to maintain work-life balance, including spending time with family on weekends.
A desire for higher compensation.
While some individuals may not actively be seeking new job opportunities, they may still be open to exploring the market and learning more about potential roles. When asked about pull factors, some may express interest in a company's product, technology, business model, or global reach. Others may be drawn to the opportunity to work alongside talented individuals or to learn from experts in their field. Additionally, referrals from friends or knowledge of competitive compensation and benefits can also serve as pull factors.
[Pro Tip] While the reasons mentioned earlier can provide valuable insights into an individual's motivations and interests, recruiters may view those who prioritize bigger titles, higher salaries, or demonstrate commitment concerns as having a "shopping mindset." In some cases, recruiters may ask follow-up questions to gain a better understanding of what motivates you and whether the role is suitable for you. For example, they may ask, "You mentioned that you want to learn something new. Could you elaborate on which areas you're interested in learning and why you find it challenging to do so in your current job?" This can help assess your learning mindset and abilities. Similarly, a recruiter may ask, "You mentioned that you have some concerns about your current manager's style, what kind of management style do you think would enable you to thrive in your role?" This can provide insights into your ability to adapt to different management styles and whether the hiring manager's style aligns with your preferences. By providing thoughtful and honest answers, you can help recruiters understand what drives you and find the right fit for both you and the company.
TO LEAVE OR NOT TO LEAVE
Interviews can often serve as a mirror of our careers, they provide an opportunity for reflection on our career choices. It's common to contemplate questions like when should I quit? When should I look out for new opportunities? How do I make choices between different companies? What should I do if given a counteroffer from my current company? What should I look for in my next job?
The popular notion of "love what you do and do what you love" or "choose a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life" can be somewhat idealistic. While it's essential to find a job that aligns with your interests and passions, it's also crucial to recognize that no job is perfect. There may be aspects of a job that you enjoy and others that fall short of your expectations. For instance, you may enjoy working with people but dislike administrative tasks, or you may enjoy the project you're working on but not the company culture. The key is to focus on the parts of the job that you love while also working on the aspects that you don't enjoy to see if there's anything you can do to improve the situation. Ultimately, you should prioritize the aspects of the job that matter most to you and align with your values and goals.
There's an interesting HBR article “Should You Quit Your Job” where a former poker champion Annie Duke was interviewed. Annie highlights that good decision-making requires considering the costs of not taking action. The interview offers a quantitative approach that can help us make informed decisions, which I found quite compelling. The approach involves coming up with a system for scoring the possible outcomes of staying in your current job versus taking a new one, estimating the probability of each outcome, multiplying the probability by the outcome score to get the expected value of each outcome, and adding them all up.
To put this into practice, let's consider some scenarios (note: the scoring system might not be exactly the same as what Annie mentioned). Suppose the factors listed in the table below are the top factors you would consider, and you rate each factor's importance on a scale of 1-10. Then, you estimate the possibility of each factor happening under each job option. For instance, if "learning new skills" is very important to you (9 out of 10), and it's challenging to achieve this in your current job, you might assign a 20% possibility of it happening. If you believe that there's an excellent chance of learning new things in a new work environment, you might assign an 80% possibility to the new job. Applying this logic, it becomes evident that "New Job 1 - International Start-up" is the optimal choice.
Suppose you highly value "stability" in the current job market, you can adjust the score from "3" to "9". With this adjustment, the table now suggests that "New Job 2 - Large Local Company" may be a better option for you.
These examples are meant to be hypothetical, and in real life, the decision-making process can be much more complex. However, trying out a quantitative approach like the one mentioned in the HBR interview can help organize your thoughts and options.
The HBR interview also mentioned that “if all these sound a little too quantitative, just ask yourself, What are the chances I’ll be happy in my current job six months from now? What are the chances I’ll be happy in a new one? Many people answer the first question with an unequivocal ‘zero percent’ and reply ‘I don’t know’ to the second—which means there’s a chance it will be higher than zero, making the choice feel easier.”
It's important to remember that sometimes we can overthink things, sometimes you’ll just have to trust your instincts. Like what Sheryl Sandberg mentioned when she was interviewing for Google back then, “So I sat down with Eric Schmidt, who had just become the CEO, and I showed him the spreadsheet and I said, this job meets none of my criteria. He put his hand on my spreadsheet and he looked at me and said, Don’t be an idiot. Get on a rocket ship. When companies are growing quickly and they are having a lot of impact, careers take care of themselves. If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.”
I guess ultimately, it all comes down to what is most important to you and your current situation. There may be many trade-offs you will need to consider during the decision-making process. If you have the freedom to choose, make sure you prioritize the following points:
Who will you be working with, and can you learn from them?
Will you have the opportunity to make a difference and have an impact in that role?
Is the company itself on the right track, and does it have a positive impact on the world?
Career choices do not have a one-size-fits-all approach. It's like a hike, there’re ups and downs, obstacles to overcome. Sometimes the path we take may not be exactly what we had planned. It's okay to take a detour and explore new opportunities, or even switch paths entirely. You might discover new perspectives and opportunities you never thought existed. This is not a race, so don't stress out if you need to take a break or slow down. Take a deep breath, reevaluate your goals, and keep moving forward at your own pace.
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