Career planning can be terrifying, especially when there are so many options while being unsure about your own interests. Admittedly, I still sometimes juggle back and forth between what I want to do between CS, education, and community.
For a lot of young adults, university is one of the last steps before entering the work force where the world is your oyster- AKA you can choose anything you want to be. This is both so freeing, yet also daunting. So this is a career framework I came up with to help students who want to begin searching for career paths:
- Learn about yourself:
- Create a list of your current Top 5 values
- Understand your career options:
- Gather a list of careers options that align with your values
- Reduce your list to 1, 2, or 3 career options
- Pave the path forward:
- Create a list of skills per career option and quantify them
- Create a list of tangible actions to work on those skills in the next 6 months
This framework was inspired by Kim Scott’s Radical Candor.
Learn about yourself
The most important part about career discovery is understanding what’s important to you. And possibly even more important than understanding what you like, it’s understanding what you don’t like. All of your friends or peers excitedly talking about going into software engineering or site reliability engineering may not bring you the same amount of joy as them.
This might seem /r/oddlyspecific because this happened to me as graduation approached: I was the only person out of a list of 50 friends who wasn’t going into a software engineering role. In fact, I wrote about it when I first joined Major League Hacking (MLH) after graduation. Somehow, I knew deep down that I did not want to become a software engineer, but FOMO took over.
So while I worked as a software engineer from 2021 to 2023, I felt so incredibly lost. I was trying to fit myself into the SWE mold, even when I knew that I didn’t truly enjoy it. One day, I randomly stumbled across a book about finding 5 values that matter to a person- it changed the way I decide what’s worth my time and effort.
1. Create a list of your current Top 5 values
To help you discover what matters to you, create a list of your current Top 5 values. You can refer to any list of values, such as Brené Brown’s list of values.
I bold “current” Top 5 values because it’s incredibly important to understand that your values change as you change and grow. My values in school were different from my values in my first full-time job. My initial list of values changed daily as I learned more about myself. This list of current values will give you a starting point to find out what matters to you.
This is the hardest and most important step of this whole framework. Before moving onto the next step, give yourself at least 1 week to refine 5 values that truly represent your current self.
💡Expand for an example of my current Top 5 values
- Efficiency
- I find so much joy in making systems as efficient as possible (this is likely why I enjoyed CS so much).
- Authenticity
- I learned I need to feel comfortable being my true self, otherwise my brain will spiral downwards because of the perceived invisible wall I’ve put between myself and others.
- Altruism
- I always feel on the top of the world when I help someone through a problem they’re facing or mentor them through a situation. I noticed I’ve felt the most happy when I help people.
- Personal growth
- I really enjoy learning and “exercising” my brain, while continuously adapting my habits and environment to fit my needs.
- Self-accountability
- I always want to feel responsible for my actions and behaviors, while acknowledging my faults. I don’t want my ego to get in the way of connecting and working with others.
The OptionsTM
2. Gather a list of careers options that align with your values
Once you’ve curated a list of your current Top 5 values, let’s use it to create a list of careers that seem to emphasize them. This step will be the most broad because everyone’s career options are so broad.
To start, I’d suggest talking to people older than you. Examples include professors, advisors, upperclassmen, family members, or even someone on the train. Tell them about your values and share a bit about why they matter to you. Ideally, they’ll suggest some career options that emphasize some or all of your current values.
Once you have a list of possible career options, it’s time to do research. You can search up more information about each role, watch videos about day-in-the-life, read blog posts, etc.
3. Reduce your list to 1, 2, or 3 career options
The goal here is to select 1, 2, or 3 careers from your list of all options. For each, further explain why that specific career option is a good fit for current you. Leverage your list of values to help build your stance.
💡Expand for an example of my career options
Full list:
- Backend software engineer
- Site reliability engineer
- Community manager
- Solutions architect
- Product/program manager
- Teacher/tutor
- Developer relations
- Technical writer
Curated options:
- Community manager – authentic with the community I manage, building efficient systems to support the hundreds/thousands of people, very altruistic, self-accountability to recognize when I mess up
- Product/program manager – build or refine processes/systems, personal growth per project, built in accountability because my work affects others,
- Teacher/tutor – develop efficient ways of transferring ideas to students, authentic while teaching, inherently altruistic, learn more info to teach it
Note: Engineering is not on my list. Although my values fit the role, I feel like there is still something lacking from what really matters to me. This realization possibly warrants an update to my current list of values to accurately reflect this hesitation..
What’s the path forward?
At this point, you’re 60% of the way done. You’ve done a lot of the hard work above by reducing your options into a list of career options that truly matter to the current you. From here, your goal is to map out your path forward before you begin walking.
4. Create a list of skills per career option and quantify them
For each career, create a list of skills that a person may need to succeed in that role. Be as specific as possible. For example “be better at communication” can become more specific as “clearly convey technical ideas to non-technical people”.
Once you’ve created a list of skills, it’s time to quantify them. For each skill, write a number next to them:
- Your current skill level out of 5 (1=completely new and 5=I’m fully confident in this skill)
- This helps you quantify where you stand per skill.
- Your ranked priority to work on that skill (1=top priority)
- This ranking is subjective, so use whatever ranking that makes sense to you. Example ranking include importance, difficulty/easiness, interest, etc.
- This helps you make sense of which skill to work on first. Multiple skills can be ranked the same number.
5. Create a list of tangible actions to work on those skills in the next 6 months
Once you have a list of skills to work on, the next step is to create a list of clear, tangible tasks that you can do. Imagine, these are things you want to put on your To Do list. Wherever possible, add numbers to your bullet points to make it as specific as possible.
Create a list of 2-5 tangible tasks that you can do to work on your skills for this 1 career option. Then for every other career option, repeat 1) creating a list of skills and 2) create a list of tangible actions to work on in the next 6 months.
💡Expand for an example of my career path forward
For this example, I’ll choose backend software engineering.
| Skills needed to succeed | Current skill level | Skill priority |
| Code data structures | 2/5 | 1 (top priority) |
| Communication skills to convey thoughts/ideas | 3/5 | 2 |
| Aiming for “good enough” and iterating improvements | 1/5 | 3 |
| Understand the “why” and “who” for the software | 2/5 | 4 |
| Tangible tasks |
| Practice 5 Leetcode problems per week to understand how to efficiently use and code data structures |
| Ask Jamie how to get started on creating a personal project to learn web development. Create a 6-month plan to create the project |
| Find a list of 10 books or resources that I can read on improving communication skills |
Conclusion
Career planning can be daunting because of how open ended it is. Start with your values and use them to help you navigate the sea of career options!
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My goal is to break down technical concepts through the lens of educational psychology. If you’ve found my explanation or breakdown helpful, please let me know in the comments!
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Jamie Liao 
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