Are You Climbing the Right Career Mountain?

by Bjørn Svendsen (August 2022)

Let me ask you a simple question. What do you want to do?

I have been asking candidates and career advisees this question for years. The answer I get in return is mostly what they can do, or what they are willing to do. I have found that those who are unable to define and articulate what they want to do in their career are also the ones who end up with little control over the direction of their career.

To understand the difference between can do, willing to, and want to let us look at what each of those means and how they affect the choices you make in your career.

The scope of your capabilities

The first thing you want to know is what you can do. These are all the things you have proven capable of doing over your life and career. To be a bit obtuse, this could be anything from brushing your teeth to building rocket ships. For employers, this is what they look at to decide the value you provide them on day one and it is this foundation of ability that will determine what roles you will be a candidate for, and what compensation you can expect to receive in return.

While it is important to know what you can do, what I find interesting about this approach is that it also helps you figure out what you can’t do yet. Recruiters and hiring managers use this information to figure out the investment their organization will need to make to enable your success if they hire you.

To put this into perspective. I have never been capable of dunking a basketball, and while I am tall, I am confident that no matter how much I practiced I do not have the athleticism to ever win a slam-dunk contest. If a basketball scout was to come by my local park and watch me practice, they would at once realize that although I can dribble, shoot, and pass, I am never going to be a good enough player to play at an advanced level. There simply would not be a return on investment for them. On the other hand, if they was looking to find a scout, they might look at how my background in recruiting could translate into finding basket talent, and suddenly the equation might be different.

What we do for money

Not everything we can do is something we are willing to do. Not everything we are willing to do is something we can do yet. What we are willing to do stands for the tasks and responsibilities that we would accept doing as part of our jobs. For most of us, this is not a set list of things and varies depending on many external factors.

In talking to thousands of candidates over the years, my conclusion on how people decide what they are willing to do is closely correlated with money. The more important money is in the short term, the more someone is willing to do. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make money. We all need money to pay for all the necessities in life and for our enjoyment. From a career perspective, the problem with only focusing on money is that even short-term marginal wealth gains can easily cloud your judgment and lead you to make career choices that will lead you into a career decided by what you are willing to do, rather than what you want to do.

Find what brings you joy

One of my closest friends is an amazing civil engineer. If a client of mine needed someone to design foundations for offshore windmills, railroads, highways, and skyscrapers he is the person I would recommend. A few years into his career, while I was still an agency recruiter, I asked him if his company were planning to promote him into a project manager role or if he wanted me to help him find another place where he could progress. To my surprise, he had already been offered opportunities to get those promotions but had turned them down. Going down the project manager track would force him to manage other engineers and get involved with client management. As an extreme introvert that terrified my friend. Rather than climb the career ladder, what he wanted was to deepen his ability as a specialist.

We live in a world where success is often defined by how high someone can climb on the career mountain. For many that will never bring them fulfillment or happiness. Instead of accepting success as what will take you to the next stage of your career, let us instead define success as the ability to achieve the fulfillment and happiness that comes with doing what you want to do and want your life to be.

There are an almost endless number of opportunities out there and figuring out exactly what you want to do can be quite hard. My friend loves what he does, and even if he could make more money climbing, he knows he would be miserable. He has found another way to have a successful career through deepening his knowledge and experience in his field. What my friend stumbled upon was the key question that I have found helps professionals’ figure that out; what brings you joy?

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