A Collection of Career Advice I Commonly Share

Recently, I have talked to many professionals interested in joining the Master of Behavioral and Decisions Sciences program at Penn. During these conversations, I find myself repeating the same advice, so I decided to document and share the topics that I commonly mention. The following suggestions include some of my best advice: 

Best Advice I Have Gotten

First, my best advice comes from one of the partners who oversaw my consulting analyst cohort onboarding. He suggested that one’s career is like a sailboat. Instead of a steamboat which can travel directly to its destination, life generally brings headwinds which pushes one in different directions. Thus, a successful employee one must have a destination in mind, but not become too wary when it does not seem like they are heading directly for it. If you are still heading in a general direction towards that ideal end, then deviations in one direction or another are less of a concern.

This has proven invaluable in my life, especially as someone who knows my end destination with some certainty. Since graduating college, I have known that I wanted to pursue the application of Behavioral Science to improve the working world. After a few months into consulting, I realized that my career did not offer much towards that end — my sail began to deviate. With this advice, I reframed this turn from something bad to a good thing. I recognized that I was still gaining many skills which would ultimately assist me once I got back on the direct path. Two years later, I left consulting and course corrected into pursuing my master’s in behavioral science. With time, I found I was much closer to that end destination then I had ever thought. 

Advancement or Passion

My best advice, especially for those early in their career, is that one must choose career advancement or passion at first, and then focus on the other second. Most people have the ideal vision where their passion will also bring compensation and recognition, but in many cases, these two spheres rarely intersect, leading to unrealistic expectations.

I faced this dilemma when I could either go into consulting where I had by far the most opportunity to grow or to go for further education where I thought my passion lied. Opting towards consulting (even as my anxiety around the work culture grew) allowed me to do what I call “business bootcamp”, make good compensation right out of college, and widely expand my opportunities. This said, I was unhappy; the travel was hard, the work was long, and I felt drained of passion. This resulted in my relatively early departure after two years to instead pursue my passion. Through hard work and admittedly a lot of luck I ultimately left my masters landing a job which brought with it both significant advancement while letting me pursue my passion.

Think about other’s desires and incentives.

All of us have various goals, projects, and desires. Many of these are defined by our job as the tasks which we are supposed to pursue. We also have the goals of which we are individually trying to achieve that may be complementary or supplementary to our core tasks. Each of these tasks has various benchmarks which define success and yield different incentives for achieving. Respecting these differences at the individual level, allows one to navigate team dynamics more easily.

Remembering that other’s desires and incentives may not align with yours is essential when working as a team. This is especially true when at surface everyone wants to see a project completed but when digging deeper there are fundamental differences in how each person defines a successful completion. Acknowledging these differences allows you to openly discuss how all parties can still achieve at least partial success rather than people ultimately feeling discontent or worse abandoning it. When disagreements arise because of different desires or incentives, recognizing it can lead to more civil dialog and less opportunity for misunderstandings to feel personal.

If you are struggling to understand why others are not bringing the same level of passion to a workstream that you are, think about what they are striving for and you may realize a priority disconnect. I sometimes question why colleagues have pushed for the rapid continuance of a project, only to be reminded that they are incentivized by the quantity, not quality, of production. In other cases, I am the one trying to move something forward, only to realize that others are picking at the progress due to their incentives to see less failure down the road. Thinking about incentives is not a panacea for all disagreements, but it can at least provide a new lens for collaboration.

Build on Your Past

This one is more for prospective students and job seekers, but I think one should only reference their past achievements or successes when illustrating how they will succeed in the future. A common pitfall I see is when an individual recites their past with the thesis that “I have done this, therefore I deserve a spot in this program or this job.” Not only can this come off as conceited, but it also relies on the fallacy that past outcomes predict future performance. When I am pitching myself for a position, I only reference my past to call out the specific skills or knowledge that can be utilized for my new job. For example, when applying for my masters, I did not suggest that “since I was at a top consulting firm, I can handle any project.” Instead, I said that “my experience at a top consulting firm exposed me to frequent client and project management that I will utilize in my academic career.”

Reflect

The last one—and the one I consider a never-ending pursuit —is the ability to be mindful about and reflect on my actions. This article is a product of reflection on how I feel good helping people and scaling my career advice. It is imperative to frequently check in with oneself, both to evaluate one’s day-to-day work and one’s overall career progression. Reflecting on past successes and failures holds the key to uncovering one’s own desires and incentives.