How I choose where to work

After college graduation, my parents’ assured me I had a “good job”, but I felt sick to my stomach. What if three months in I hated my job or worse; what if it led to a dead-end in my career? 

Since then, I’ve switched jobs inside the same company a few times, and have still felt that same uncertainty every time. Should I stay in my role, switch internally, or go elsewhere? Recently though a mentor helped me create this mental model to decide where to work next

1. Who am I working with?
   • Your manager/partner is more important even than the work you are doing
   • If you love the people you work with everything will be better
2. Is the area growing?
   • When an area is growing opportunities open up that you can’t even imagine
   • In addition, small/fast growing areas lead to quicker promotions and upward growth as you become more tenured than new hires
3. Is it fun?
   • Life is made up of a lot of dreary Monday and Wednesday mornings 
   • If you love what you do, Mondays will start feeling like Fridays and you’ll thrive both personally and professionally
4. Am I learning?
   • Are you adding new skills beyond what you already have?
   • High learning roles are often challenging as you don’t know anything. This short term pain is well worth it though, as learning compounds and sets you up for a long term success
5. What options does it offer?
   • Even when you don’t know what’s next, think about what’s possible 
     • The more roles/areas opened up by a job, the better off future you will be
     • Instead of being boxed into one area, you’ll have the choice of whatever you want  
   • In addition, as Naval says “the single most important thing about a company is the alumni network you’re going to build”

While this doesn’t capture everything, it has helped me add structure to a white space problem. Good luck in your next role and let me know if there’s any other frameworks you use when choosing what’s next.