3 Key Questions to Guide Career Decision Making

Making a grounded career decision that you won't regret isn't easy, but three key questions can help move you from confused to clear in mere moments.

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Career decision points come up frequently across our lifetimes, both while we’re navigating within organizations and when we’re moving between them .

In my career coaching practice, decision making is a common challenge clients bring into sessions. Whether it’s about pursuing a promotion, changing roles to have a new function, leaving a company entirely, taking a planned sabbatical, or taking advantage of an opportunity that fell into their laps, it’s never easy to make a grounded career decision that won’t be regretted.

Through fourteen years of my own trial and error, I’ve found that three questions are most impactful for moving someone from “overwhelmed and uncertain” to “clear and focused” when they have a big career decision on the table.

How Much Certainty Do You Have About the Career Decision?

One question has to be the starting point for all career decision making: on a scale of 0% to 100%, how much certainty do you have about the career decision, and in which direction (i.e., toward a “yes” or a “no”)?

Most people have a quick, gut level answer to this, and I find that the good ol’ 50% is a common beginning place, which makes sense since we’re holding a coaching session precisely because confusion reigns!

It may seem like we need to get at or near to 100% confidence in order to move forward with a career decision, but that isn’t the case at all. I encourage clients to reach about 80% certainty before coming to a conclusion. Calm, the meditation and grounding company, in contrast, recommends only having 70% certainty before moving forward.

Why don’t we need 100% certainty? Because, as co-author of Decisions Over Decimals: Striking the Balance Between Intuition and Information, Christopher Frank writes, “The perfect decision doesn’t exist. Certainty is a myth.”

In addition, we don’t want to set the bar at 100% because that can lead to analysis paralysis, a real and vexing phenomenon studied by psychologists and cognitive scientists that contributes to lack of positive development and/or genuine mental health challenges.

I’ve consistently found that once clients reach about 80% certainty, they feel great about their decision, even if it turns out horribly in the end. No matter what results, they know they made the best, most intentional decision they could based on available data at the time.

What Do You Need to Know or Experience in Order to Become More Certain About the Career Decision?

If we only need about 70 to 80% certainty about a career decision to feel good about our choice, how do we get there? That’s where the question of “what do you need to know or experience in order become more certain about the career decision?” comes in.

Here are steps in the process of answering this key question:

1. Make a list of everything you’d like to know/learn in order to make a grounded decision. Ask yourself, "what are you unclear about"?" or “what are you worried about?” and this list quickly emerges. The list typically consists of clear specifics that you can gather, such as the salary, the number of people in the team you’d be joining, or the KPIs that would be expected.
2. Also write out a list of everything you’d need to experience in order to make a confident decision. This list usually consists of intangibles that could affect your decision, such as the rapport you feel with the hiring manager, how much you’d probably like interacting with your direct colleagues, or the amount of growth that may be possible in the role.
3. Work through both lists and highlight what can be made known, with a bit of research or activity. These are often called “known unknowns ," which you can turn into “known knowns” with just a bit of effort.
4. Let go of the items that are not highlighted; accept that neither you nor anyone can perfectly see the future. There are some uncertainties that simply can’t be pinned down. What’s going to happen in the national or global economy, geopolitics, or even a particular corporation’s future can be predicted but never known for sure. I find that perseverating on these absolutely unknowable factors are the leading cause of analysis paralysis amongst my clients. Practice letting go of what you cannot know; it’s may be the biggest key to remaining active and engaged in life.
5. Write down how you can get the information you need, and start doing your research. Want to test rapport with the hiring manager? Ask for another meeting and prep well-designed questions that will help you feel that out. Need some specifics from HR? Then write to them and ask. Doing the research changes the factors from “known unknowns” to “known knowns," resulting in a surge of confidence, whether that confidence be in the direction of a “yes” on the career decision or a “no.” It’s absolutely worth the effort, and worth overcoming any hesitations you have about asking (better to know now than later!).

What Would You Advise About This Career Decision, If This Were a Colleague?

This final question is the clincher that even my most decision averse clients answer without pause. When asked what they’d advise someone else, they usually don’t hesitate with an answer.

Interestingly, the answer is usually punchy, without any of the hesitations, hemming and hawing, and nuanced considerations they were saying before I asked for their advice for someone else.

Common phrases I hear in response to the advice-providing career decision question include: “go for it!” and “avoid that at all costs!” and “better do your due diligence” and “it’s a sure thing.”

I always reflect back their clarity about the next steps and the career decision itself and ask, “Why didn’t you say anything this certain before I asked this question?”

Typically the response is something like, “Well, because it’s not me. I’m not worried about that person taking a risk or doing something wrong. I’m just able to say what makes sense.”

Well there you go: what makes sense.

It is worth unpacking the “because it’s not me” notion because it’s excellent fodder to uncover unspoken fears that need to be addressed through additional research; therapy, meditation, and other mental wellness supports; or a combination of the two.

Regardless of the inevitable fears that come with any career decision, asking and acting upon the three key questions in this article yield confidence to make an intentional and definitive choice that you can feel good about, regardless of the ultimate outcome.

By Rebecca Fraser-Thill, Senior Contributor