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How to Create Your Career Blueprint or Vision
Part 1: Likes and Dislikes: Hidden Keys to Your Happiness

This is an exercise to help you get a clear direction if you're confused about your career path. Designing a new job or career is much like designing a custom home. If you hired an architect to design your dreamhouse, they might ask you to remember previous homes and comment on things you liked or disliked about them. If you enjoyed having a sun porch, a walkout basement, and an oversize pantry, you could design those features into your new place. If you disliked a musty basement and too-small closets, you could avoid those items in the new plan.

You may design your next job or career the same way. Think about your past jobs, write down your likes and dislikes about each of them. Then design a new path that incorporates your likes and avoids your dislikes. In my own case, I like writing, publishing, and one-on-one consulting. I want to include them in any future job. I'm less fond of interpreting financials and spreadsheets. I'll minimize my exposure to them in the future by having financial experts around.

How to Begin

Divide your work experience into short 3-5 year segments--by job title, by boss, by location, by projects, or by any other convenient method. Reason: It's easier to remember short, specific time frames than the entire past at once. Include volunteer work experience, and even hobby or sporting interests, if you're considering them as career directions.

Take a separate sheet of paper for each of these time frames, and divide the page into two columns. On the left side of the page, write down all the things you liked about the job. On the right side, itemize the things you disliked about the job--and be as specific and detailed as possible. It's not too helpful to say, for example, "I disliked the people." That's much too general. It's more useful to say, "I disliked people who were pushy and rude."

Things to Think About

Use the categories below to guide your thoughts. Since every job involves most of these items, try to include notes and comments about each:

• Boss/Top Management
• The Company
• Products/Services
• Organizational Structure
• Political Climate
• Culture
• Compensation/Benefits/Rewards
• Duties and Responsibilities
• Geography
• People
• Peers
• Employees
• Customers
• Vendors/Consultants
• Physical Space
• Facilities
• Tools and Equipment
• Stress Level
• Tasks/Projects/Activities
• Travel

Think through each time frame carefully. Where were you? What were your big challenges? Your big successes? Your major failures or disappointments? How were you and your boss getting along? How did you feel about the organization? Were you proud and happy to be working there?

This isn't a 15-minute exercise where you drain your brain once and for all. It's a "refrigerator exercise." You tape it to the refrigerator and make notes from time to time as you walk by. This is a "think piece." You mull it over in your mind for several days, or even several weeks. In general, it's better to make long detailed lists rather than short generic ones. The more data you have, the easier you'll see trends and patterns.

Examples

Here are a few examples of what others have written:

Liked about boss:
Affirmed and encouraged me
Recognized performance
Fostered teamwork
Objectively critiqued and coached areas for growth
Like working for someone who is focused and prioritizes effectively, versus someone who continually changes priority from one thing to another--or making everything the same high priority.

Disliked about boss:
micromanaged every little detail
constant criticisms of minutiae
disliked reporting to two bosses at the same time

Liked about the work itself:
Huge variety
Being the key decision maker in the department
Making high-pressure formal presentations to board of directors

Disliked about the work:
Less able to know what was going on in an ever larger, more complex company
Lack of time and funding to improve systems as volume and complexity grew
Not having a back-up to co-create, generate new ideas

Finishing the Exercise

1. Review your lists and look for patterns. You might say, "I see I've always liked working on projects alone with no outside supervision. Therefore, I want to limit my people interaction in the future." Or you could observe the opposite about yourself: "I've never liked working on projects alone; I do best in a team-oriented environment."
2. Make extra copies of your lists and distribute them to a few trusted family members, friends, or business acquaintances. Discuss your preferences with others to see what insights they have. Those who know us well often see connections we miss.
3. Begin to decide what you want in your next job--and what you don't want in the future. Begin to determine what you must have--these are the absolute essentials-- then think about what would be fun, but perhaps frivolous. A window view of the ocean? Three weeks of paid vacation? A T-1 connection for access to the Internet?

People often object that this exercise is too idealistic. After all, we can't always have everything we want. I agree that we must pay attention to reality, but at the same time, it's important to dream a little too. You may not incorporate all your likes into your next work assignment; but chances are, if you have your priorities firmly in mind, you'll hit a major home run.

Next step: go to Part 2 of this three-part series, How to Create a Career Blueprint

William S. Frank, M.A., is founder and President of CareerLab. Since 1978, he has devoted more than 20,000 hours as a career, outplacement, and human resources consultant to employees, managers, senior executives, and boards of directors of more than 200 major U.S. corporations. He wrote 200 Letters For Job Hunters, published by Ten Speed Press, and he created the RED HOT Cover Letter collection in the Career Center at America Online, which is visited by more than 1,000,000 visitors per month. For more information about CareerLab, visit class.newspress.com/sect/employment.