How to find a job that aligns with your values [#73]

I spend a lot of time with people wanting to figure out their next step in life. Things like: how do I find a job that aligns with my values? 

Today, I want to present my best guess on how to answer this question. 

Let’s dive in. 

The Specialist Education Funnel 

Figuring out your career is a daunting task. You graduate from high school, choose a major, and boom – your entire career for your entire life is set. Better not mess up that choice. 

At least, this is the case if you follow the traditional model of career building, which I call the specialist education funnel. Many educational systems, like the German one, are designed to take you from broad generalism in middle and high school, to a much higher degree in specialization in university.

After university, you get a job, and specialize further – until you’re a B2B SaaS Mid-Market Account Executive for Northeastern Germany specializing in CRMs. 

Educational systems were designed in the 1800s, when the main purpose was to produce obedient soldiers, compliant citizens and well-behaved workers. Students were taught how to work, not how to think. And education does this quite well. In a world where industrial factories & armies are the biggest employers, it’s ideal to have specialists. 

The thing is: we don’t live in the 1800s anymore. You don’t have to go down the specialist funnel. You can always change your career. 

Your choice of university degree or next job certainly will have some impact on the trajectory of your life, but not define all of it.

Think about it like this: you’ve arrived at your destination airport, and are about to go out of the airport. The door won’t let you back in once you go through. 

You now have two choices: stand inside the cozy terminal, or dive into the unknown. Unless you want to end up like Mehran Nasseri, who lived in Charles de Gaulle airport for 16 years, you go through the door, into the unknown. And every single time, you will be just fine. 

But if you truly, truly want to go back inside the terminal, while you can’t go back through the same door, you can always buy another ticket, go through security, and get back in. 

Yes, it takes time. Yes, it’s expensive. But it’s possible. 

Committing to your next challenge is similar: if you stay in your cozy job that doesn’t really make you happy, you’re staying in the terminal. Quitting it, and beginning something new, is going through the arrivals door.

There’s always a way back (such as buying a ticket and going back through security). It won’t be easy, but possible. 

The only way to figure out what you actually want is to pick something that’s good enough, go through the damn door, and see whether it works out for you. 

Along the way, you’ll learn a lot about yourself, what you like and dislike, and what you’re actually good at. 

Stay on the f**king bus

Tim Duggan has this beautiful story from a Finnish photographer called Arno Minkkinen: in Helsinki, there’s a central bus station, from which most lines leave. (Apologies for the public transport analogies, I’m typing this while on an airplane.) 

Each bus takes the same route out of the city for at least a kilometer.  You take one, don’t like the scenery, and go back to the central bus station to hope on a different bus. But it takes the same route! You’re disappointed again, but if you always go back, you’ll never get to a new, more unique place. 

In Arno’s mind, these buses represent different career paths you can take in life. When starting something new (ie. getting onto the bus line), there will be plenty of others who have been there before. The longer you remain on the bus, the fewer people you will find you have been there. You eventually emerge with a unique point of view, a unique take on the thing that you’re doing. 

The lesson here: don’t start something and quit instantly, to go back and start something new. Instead, pick one thing, stick with it for a while, and only then decide whether that was the right decision.

By the time you’ve been on the bus long enough, the territory around you will have changed, and you’ll have learned, that you might not want to go back. 

So, while you’re definitely able to ditch your previous path, it pays off to see things through for a while. Doing a lot of things without gathering any unique insights into them also isn’t the answer. 

You don’t have to make a decision for your entire career, but you do have to make a decision for the next few years. 

Get on the f**king bus. Stay on the f**king bus. 

The Map is not the Territory

At the beginning of your career, you have a rough roadmap of what you want to achieve. 

But the map is not the territory. Even if you were to draw a perfect, crystal clear career map for the rest of your career, you wouldn’t understand what it means until you get there. A map is an approximation, an abstraction of territory. It’s not the territory itself. 

Your map might change with the territory, or you might consider going to completely different place. But you’ll only learn what the territory is like when you begin the journey. 

That being said … a map can be incredibly useful. 

Let’s put all of this together: 

How to find a job that aligns with your values: 

1. Model your ideal end state (→ ie. based on what you know for now, think about where you want to be in, say, ten years). 
2. Ask people who are currently there what it’s like (to easily validate whether that end state is actually what you imagine it to be). For example, if you want to study medicine, it’s certainly worth it to have a chat with 2-3 doctors who are currently practicing and (in-)validate whether the day-to-day reality is what you imagine it to be.
3. If that’s the case, reverse engineer the way to get there. Asking the people you spoke to how they got there is definitely helpful.
4. Based on this reverse engineering, you build out your roadmap to get to the point where you want to be. 
5. The closer to get to the present, the more detailed it should be. 
6. Begin with the first step on your map. 

Say, for example, you want to become an entrepreneur, and you’re currently in your last year of university:

1. Think about what your life would look like if you were successful in your dream of becoming an entrepreneur. Model this in detail, maybe with a vision board.
2. Take your vision board, and find 2-3 entrepreneurs who are currently where you aspire to be. Ask them what their day-to-day life is like and compare this to your vision. 
3. If that’s aligned, then also ask them how they got there. Some entrepreneurs start by simply building their first business and failing over and over; others learn the chops from experienced entrepreneurs by working for them.
4. Model the map in detail: for example, you could use your last semester of your studies to start building out a small online shop. After university, you apply to Founder’s Associate positions (if you’re smart, you do this via Generalyst), and work with an experienced founder for 2-3 years. 
5. Then, begin. Go through the arrivals door. 
6. Stay on the f**king bus. 

In short: form a hypothesis → gather initial validation → reverse engineer → commit. 

Question for you: 

How would you improve / adapt this framework? This is a very rough draft, but that’s the beauty of writing in public – you exposure your ideas to public scrutiny. Any pointers or resources are helpful. 

That’s all for today. Spring has fully arrived in Berlin. Great week to get after it. 

LFG. 🔥

Dominik

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