Can’t Stop Saying ‘I Don’t Know What Job I Want’? Do These 6 Things (And Avoid These 3)

One of the most important parts of getting a job is figuring out what career path is right for you. But if you’re thinking “I don’t even know what job I want,” you’re not alone. Trying to plan your career — with so many industries, companies, and titles to choose from — can be overwhelming, stressful, and challenging, especially if you’re unsure what those industries, companies, and titles are really like. 

We’ve all been there. Yet it’s possible — and can even be exciting — to learn what roles you’re interested in and fit your skill set best. Here’s your go-to guide to stop saying “I don’t know what job I want” and figuring it out instead.

9 Dos and Don’ts for Figuring Out What Job You Want

Figuring out what job you want requires a combination of introspection, self-awareness, research, and experimentation. While it can feel like a lot to handle, the best way to approach this exploration is one step at a time. Here’s what to do (and what to avoid).

1. Do Uncover Your Interests

When you keep telling yourself, “I don’t know what job I want,” you might feel like you have to rush and find a career match. Instead, take a step back and start by considering what interests you. It doesn’t have to be what you think is typically “professional” — things like travel, TV, and reading count! Dreaming big and not limiting yourself is essential. Ask yourself questions like:

• When I have free time, what do I like to do?
• What extracurricular activities am I drawn to?
• What classes do I like taking?
• What topics excite me? 
• What do I find myself talking or thinking a lot about?
• How do I like to do things? Do I like creating? Fixing? Managing? Giving advice? 
• What are activities or tasks I do that make me lose track of time?
• What does my ideal life look like? What do I want to be doing in 20 years?

“You may never know what you ‘want,’ (who truly does?), but you definitely know what you like and the things that interest you,” Korn Ferry career coach Ryan Frechette says. “Look at how you spend your time. Look at what’s already under your nose. Look at what you spend most of your time thinking about/talking about/learning about. Chances are there will be a few main topics that rise to the top that get you really excited and energized to have conversations about. All of those personal interest areas have companies making products and services in that domain.”

For example, I’ve always had an interest in writing. When I was a kid, I would write and illustrate my own stories, keep journals, and read constantly. As I grew up, English was consistently my favorite subject, and it’s what I chose to major in in college. 

>>MORE: ‘What Should I Go to College For?’ Quiz: 17 Questions to Find the Right Major

2. Do Take a Career Test (With a Grain of Salt)

Career tests can help you discover career options when you don’t know what job you want. They can help you understand your work personality and strengths and weaknesses, and show you careers you might not have thought of before.

Melissa Venable, education advisor and principal writer at BestColleges.com, says career tests can help you in numerous ways, “whether you are in the exploration stage, looking to widen the options available, or in the decision-making stage, trying to narrow your focus.”

Unfortunately, many career tests out there require previous career knowledge and money to take and get your results. How are you supposed to know whether you want to be a programmer if you don’t even know what a programming language is? That’s why we came up with fun, easy, free career quizzes that you can do without any priority career knowledge:

• Career quiz for students
• Career aptitude test
• Personality career quiz
• What should I do with my life? Quiz

These tests can give you starting points of what careers might be a good match for you, based on your skills, personality, interests, and career goals. You don’t need any experience to take these quizzes, and you’ll get your results immediately.

3. Don’t Make a List of All the Skills You Need to Learn

Hear us out — yes, you may need to build some skills to eventually land your dream role. Instead, focus on the skills you have right now. Even if you have zero work experience, you definitely have skills you can use on your job search. Consider your:

• Hard skills: What are your quantifiable skills? What are technical skills, programs, and tools you know? You don’t need to be interested in technology to have hard skills. Skills like negotiating, graphic design, copywriting, Microsoft Excel, and foreign languages count, too.
• Soft skills: What are your skills for how you work with others and prioritize your own work? Do you collaborate well? Are you a great logical thinker? Do you have top-notch time management skills?
• Transferable skills: These are both hard and soft skills that you can take from one job to another. For example, just because you worked at an ice cream shop doesn’t mean you don’t have the right skills for sales roles — in fact, your customer service experience might be a highly valuable transferable skill.

Unsure how your strengths match up to real-life roles? Here’s a guide to some common strengths and corresponding job simulations to explore:

Strengths	Job Simulation
Creative thinking, brainstorming	BCG Introduction to Strategy Consulting
Problem-solving skills	Bloomberg Client Engagement
Visual design, ideation	BCGX Strategic & Experience Design
Data analysis, presentation skills, communication skills	Quantium Data Analytics
Writing, attention to detail	Introduction to Commercial Law
Active listening, customer service	Fidelity Investments Customer Relationship Advocate
Research, critical thinking, interviewing	PwC Cyber Security Consulting
Communication, strategy, overcoming objections	Red Bull On-Premise Sales
Critical thinking, problem-solving, Excel	KPMG Career Catalyst Program: Audit
Research, summarization, critical thinking	Citi Markets Sales & Trading
Data analysis, problem-solving, communication	Mastercard Cybersecurity

4. Do Your Research

You know your interests and your skills. Now, how do those map to actual roles you might want to do, or companies you want to work for? It’s time to start researching by going straight to the source. Try searching for:

• Career advice articles: Read up on different career paths, job titles, and industries. Career sites (like Forage!) are often written by career professionals who can give you an unbiased overview of various jobs.
• Open roles: Examine job descriptions to see what the typical responsibilities and skill sets are. You can use general sites like LinkedIn or Indeed, or more specific sites if you’re interested in a certain type of work, like Idealist for non-profit work or Wellfound for start-up jobs.
• Industry news: Get an idea of what’s going on within specific industries. It’s as easy as searching “tech industry” and going to the “News” tab on Google. From there, you may find certain papers, journalists, newsletters, or even social media accounts you can follow.
• Company websites: Learn about specific companies and their missions, culture, and values. A company’s career page can be a great way to learn more about its values — just be sure to take everything with a grain of salt and look for what employees say on sites like Glassdoor. 

5. Don’t Pigeonhole Yourself

“My no. 1 piece of advice is EXPLORE, EXPLORE, EXPLORE,” Brianna Brazle, founder of CultureLancer, a career development and transition tech platform for historically disadvantaged and underserved college students.

Don’t let one potential job title or skill set constrain you. If you think an internship sounds interesting but isn’t what you expected to try, that’s OK! At this stage, you want to follow your instincts and try as much as you can.  

You don’t need to jump into a 12-week long program to get a taste of different roles. Externships, short-term courses, part-time work, and Forage job simulations can all give you inside views into different fields and career paths without having to tie yourself to a full-time job.

>>MORE: Externship vs. Internship: What’s the Difference?

“It is important for individuals as they prepare to go into or look for fields to go into to explore their options, interests, skills, and passions,” Brazel says. “However, it is equally (if not more) important to explore with intention and not aimlessly jumping into anything that wastes one’s time. If you are in college, it is the perfect opportunity to experiment with different avenues that could inform your career decisions and interest.”

Career coach David Meintrup of Korn Ferry agrees, citing that this exploration can even help you stand out to recruiters. 

“As many avenues that you can practically explore the better,” Meintrup says. “At the same time [as you’re exploring] you’re building an industry and functional brand. My most successful students follow this type of process and upon graduation are very attractive to recruiters because they have done two things – built their brand AND know what they like and don’t like.”

6. Do Consider How You Like to Work

Once you’ve thought about things that interest you, it’s time to put together the next part of the working puzzle: how you like to work. This isn’t just whether you want to work remotely or in-person (although that’s very important!), but also whether you’re more of an independent worker, love collaborating, or maybe like interacting with people you don’t know. 

“A different environment might make a bad career choice tolerable, but not satisfying. Likewise a great career choice in the wrong organization could be a disaster,” Ira Wolfe, president and future of work global thought leader at Poised for the Future Company, warns.

But how do you know what kind of work environment you like without professional experience? Consider environments you have worked in, whether for a school project, extracurricular, or volunteer opportunity. Did you enjoy working in a team? If so, what role did you play on the team, or did you admire a function someone else did? Did you like working remotely? Do you like being in a large class or a tight-knit group?

7. Don’t Forget Your Work Values

If you’re telling yourself, “I don’t know what job I want,” consider why you want a job in the first place. Maybe you care about social issues or politics and want to make a difference. You may want to serve your community. Maybe you don’t want to work for a higher purpose and instead hope to focus on getting a well-paying job. Perhaps you want to work for a company with a diverse workforce. Maybe you care about learning new skills or having a job that gives you a great work-life balance.

Your work values can help you prioritize what kinds of roles to look for and settle on your non-negotiables: things you absolutely need from a job and will not accept a position if it doesn’t have them.

Your work values and non-negotiables may change over time, and that’s OK! Different living circumstances can change what you want out of a job; for example, if you’re considering having kids within the next few years, you may look for a job with great parental leave benefits. Your values may also change depending on your experience in specific roles and companies. For example, my first role was at a startup, but I didn’t necessarily choose the company because of that. During that experience, I learned I really value that fast-paced culture, and that kind of work environment has become one of my work values.

8. Do Talk to Professionals

Networking can be scary, but it’s a great way to learn about what other people do. Set up informational interviews to get insights on what professionals’ careers are like, the daily responsibilities of their job, and companies they’ve worked for.

>>MORE: How to ask for (and prepare for) an informational interview.

“Ask people a few years older than yourself, who work in your areas of interest, what their perspective is of the environment and culture where they are at,” Frechette says. “Chances are you will listen to and relate to their perspectives since they were in your shoes not long ago.”

If you’re interested in a specific company, Frechette recommends asking employees who work there to talk about their experiences. “Seeking more diverse inputs from employees can help provide different insights and wisdom that could lend to better and more holistic decision making for yourself.”

9. Do Reassure Yourself It’ll All Be OK

When you find yourself saying, “I don’t know what job I want,” it can feel impossible to start your career. Know that you don’t have to get it right the first time — or even the second or third time (or fourth or fifth!). 

You might find that the job you want now differs from the one you want in five years. And that’s all OK. It’s especially common to job-hop early in your career. Job-hopping is common; almost two-thirds of Gen Z’ers plan to leave their employer in search of a new job in the next two years, according to Business Insider. If you do so intentionally and with care, you can learn transferable skills, gain experience, make connections without burning bridges, and hopefully land a job you really love.

Image credit: Alex Green / Pexels

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