Career Levers

I’ve spent 5 years helping adults navigate careers and kids explore them. One question that has kept nagging me:

Why do some career moves feel right and others feel off? Even if they look good on paper?

This question made me go down in a rabbit hole of my own career moves. I found 4 variables that actually matter:

• Industry - The domain (Education, Healthcare, Climate etc.)

• Employment type - How you work (Employed vs Self-Employed)

• Organisation type - Where you work (Startup, Corporate, Non-profit etc.)

• Role - What you do (Designer, Educator, Doctor etc.)

Most career advice treat these as one decision.

They’re not. They are four distinct levers.

I love education. I love being self-employed. I’m neutral on org type. I can play different roles.

Knowing what levers I actually care about has made saying no to “good opportunities” much easier. If something scores 1/4 on my variables, it’s not a good opportunity for me.

Which lever matters the most to you? Which one have you been ignoring?