In today’s Careers Briefing: Decision-making we covered:
- Ways to conceptualise decision-making in the context of working currently as a researcher in HE
- Common causes of careers indecision
- Decision-making techniques and strategies
- The Theory of Planned Behaviour as a source of questions that can help us understand our decision-making and action-taking confidence more clearly
In a previous post on Academic Adjacent Careers, I wrote in more depth about ways to conceptualise career decisions in terms of how far you want to move away from your current position – not at all to very far indeed. The post also includes a link to the Vitae Widening Horizons funnel to help open up your options into suggestions for specific role at varying distances from your current one.
The common causes of career indecision we explored are taken from Greenhaus et al. (2010, 5th edition). Career Management:
- Lack of self-information – no sense of our values, interests, needs, priorities and the important role they play in shaping both our options and choices
- Lack of internal work information – can include lack of knowledge around progression criteria, not understanding how we fit in to the bigger strategic picture and the direction of the organisation, as well as roles within our existing organisation
- Lack of external work information – “We can only aspire to careers we know about.”
- Lack of decision-making self-confidence – stems from not having self-awareness related to our decision-making competency
- Decision-making fear and anxiety – we frame our decision-making in terms of positive-negative, good-bad, ideal-catastrophe, gain-loss, etc. – to avoid potential negative feelings, we avoid making a decision.
- Non-work demands -caring, volunteering, training, hobbies and leisure activities
- Situational constraints – can be difficult to transition to a career that we find more appealing and fits better with our values when we feel we’ve invested a lot in the one we’re in
Lastly, we looked at decision-making techniques and strategies, using the how to make a career decision from the University of Oxford Careers Service, and how the theory of planned behaviour can help..
One participant helpfully asked about further reading. Some of that will depend on what aspect of decision-making you feel you need support with, so google can be your friend here. The resources mentioned in this post are a good start, as are resources inspired by Squiggly Careers made available by the authors on their Amazing If website. You can also find plenty to read, reflect on, and do on the IAD Career Management pages. And, of course, feel free to share the most useful career decision-making reading you’ve found in the comments.
* This activity has been developed by The Institute for Academic Development to improve the University of Edinburgh research cultures as part of the University’s research cultures action plan.
