I’ve met a lot of B-school students recently who are contemplating their next career move.  It’s a big decision, and this market doesn’t really help.  I know that right now, it’s really more of a buyer’s market out there, and candidates might have to just take what they can get.  But it’s also helpful to be thinking long term about what you are looking for in a job and in a longer career.

For what it’s worth, here are the three questions I asked myself when I was deciding what to do post B-school.

1. What activities do I enjoy doing on a day to day basis?

This is something I never really thought about much, but I think it’s profoundly important.  What do you actually like doing?  Do you like meeting people?  Do you like hanging out in big group?  Large groups?  Do you like doing research and analysis? Think about the activities that give you the most joy, and try to find a job where you get to do those activities.  For me, I really enjoy meeting with people and talking about new ideas. But I actually much prefer doing that in small groups or in 1:1 settings.  It’s a good fit for venture, where much of my day is spent meeting with management teams and entrepreneuers and hearing their stories.

2. What subject matter excites you?

In addition to activities, you want to be focused on areas that you think is interesting and will keep you intellectually stimulated.  I think there are a couple layers to this.  One is the field that you are going into (ie: retail, internet, medical devices, etc).  The other is the kind of problems that you want to solve.  For example, being a product manager at an internet company is very different from being the director of ad sales at that same company.  The field is the same, but the function is different.  You need to find a subject matter that gets you going on both dimensions.

One additional note on #2: I think more people jump to this question before they answer #1, which I think is a big mistake.  Sometimes, we have unrealistic expectations about careers based on #2, and I think answering #1 forces you to really think about what you will really be doing every day.

3. If I assume I will be successful, will I enjoy what this job looks like in 10 years?

This is a wierd one.  I’d break it down to its two parts.  Assuming success is important.  Some people are gifted with a lot of confidence and never have to wrestle with this. But I think that being really great at a really great job is hard, and the risk of failure is meaningful.  Also, it’s very easy to say “I’m not qualified” or “I don’t have the expertise in that field” and stick to something safe.  Assuming success frees you to think about fields and functions that you may actually enjoy, but may not have the perfect background for at this point in your career.

On the 10-year horizon, I don’t mean that you need to commit to a role for that long or even be thinking about your career or job choice with that time horizon.  My point is that most jobs have a lot of pros and cons… and a lot of jobs have a lot of crappy elements at the junior level.  The question is whether the job eventually evolves into something you would love and if those crappy elements get better or worse.  The question is also whether the job changes significantly as you progress, such that your answers to #1 and #2 are going to change when you are in a more senior role.

One example that comes to mind is management consulting.  In a way, it’s a very attractive job in the early years because of what you learn and the variety of experiences.  But once you are a partner at a firm, the job changes significantly, and it requires a lot of travel and selling.  That’s not the job for everyone, and even if you aren’t going to be a career consultant, don’t forget that that is what would be in store in 10 years.

I think of these questions as the tactical questions that I spent a lot of time thinking about during my career transition in B-school.  However, there are two more questions that I think are broader, more overarching questions to answer as well.  I’ll go into those in my next post.