Ask yourself: What do you want

One of the things I learned along the way is that nobody knows what they want. This is especially true when career decisions are on the table. During your MBA, you will no doubt join your fellow students in bashing the program's Career Services, but be fair - they have the impossible job of helping you with something you are clueless about.

Philosophers say that in order to get a good answer, you need to ask a good question.

What is "right" for you changes with time. Remember yourself three years ago. You changed so much, especially in the professional sense. Experience means a lot when your resume fits on a single page. What does not change is your personality. You may become more sophisticated with age, but really, you will always be yourself. Let's start with that.

One important aspect of maturing as a person is figuring out what you do NOT want. People can tell when a job is not suited for their personality - they feel miserable doing it. Arguably, there are no bad jobs, just bad people for the job. This is the basic premise of staff "shuffling" that HR professionals like so much.

Which brings us to a good question to ponder - "What kind of job is NOT right for my personality?"

When you start your MBA, the school will bombard you with info sessions, career seminars, practice interviews, and everything else that will make you feel miserable about not knowing what you want to do. You will be surrounded with brilliant colleagues who seem to have their career planned 20 years ahead. Relax. They are just as clueless and terrified as you are. Take them out for drinks if you don't believe me.

In order to narrow down your options, figure out what you do not want based on your personality. Be honest, and ask yourself:

• Would you prefer working alone on highly analytical tasks, or within a team on something more general?
• Would you prefer working within your geographic region or internationally?
• Would you rather have a clearly defined job in a big corporation, or a broad role in a smaller company?

- Article by Vladimir Miladinovic, MBA'11

Read full article: Financial Post, September 19, 2011