Career Planning Advice for Students (in Simple Diagram)
As a college professor, I have had many opportunities to talk with students about their career plans. Many of these students are trying to figure out if they should go to law school. I’d like to share the advice I’ve given students and hope that others will find it helpful.
First of all, there is no right answer to a question like “Should I go to law school?” We are all different people. A treatment that heals one person may kill another person. The career path that’s right for someone else may not be right for you. The important thing is following the path that’s right for you. Listen to advice from your parents, they know you and love you, but realize they choose their own paths too.
How do you know what career path is right for you? I like to illustrate this with a Venn diagram with three large circles:
- What you like (orange circle). These are the activities and things that you enjoy doing.
- Your skills (blue circle). These are the activities and things that you’re good at doing, your abilities, expertise, and the competencies you’ve acquired through education, experience, or practice.
- The market (green circle). This circle represents activities and things that are in demand or can generate income.

The diagram shows that there are some activities and things that should be important aspects of your life but are not your career path. Appreciate them and allow them to enrich your life.
- Hobbies (Likes + Skills). These are activities and things you enjoy and are good at but lack a market demand (or lack market demand at your skill level). Enjoy your arts and crafts, participate in athletics, be a foodie. Enjoy your hobbies as personal pursuits rather than professional opportunities.
- Gigs (Skills + Market). If you’re good at something and there’s a market for it, do it occasionally to make supplemental income. Gigs can help you in the short-term, but they should not be your long-term path.
- Hires (Likes + Market). These are activities and things you enjoy or find useful, but you are not good at. Fortunately, there is a market for them so you can pay someone else to do it for you. The professional term for this is delegation. You like good food but can’t cook? Pay someone else to cook for you.
The center of the diagram is Career (Likes + Skills + Market). Here is where your passions, abilities, and market demand align. This is the ideal area for a fulfilling and sustainable career. The more a path aligns the things you like and are good at with the market, the better the path is for you.
Finding Your Path & Dealing with Uncertainty
How do you know what careers would fall into the happy union of likes, skills, and market before you’ve had a chance to try them? To some extent, you don’t. I don’t think anyone, young or old, can see all of the path that’s right for them. That uncertainty can create anxiety, but it’s also what makes life an interesting adventure. There will probably be times in your life when you turn off one path and follow another. You may even turn around, go back, and take another path. In your lifetime, you’ll discover that people who seemed to be getting ahead were going the wrong way. You’ll see that some people who wander through life are not lost at all. (Grow old enough and you’ll be grateful you didn’t just march off a cliff or get killed when you crossed paths with an angry bear lol.)
I have two suggestions to help you identify your path for the next, say, 1-5 years. First, try taking inventory of your likes and skills based on whatever work and school experiences you’ve had. List the jobs you’ve had, the classes you’ve taken, and your extracurricular activities. For each experience, write down what you liked, what you didn’t like, what you were good at, and what you weren’t so good at. You’ll see recurring themes.
Second, if you’re not sure what paths are available, work on improving your vantage point. One of the best things you can do for better perspective, especially if you’re a young person in school, is exposure to different industries, fields, and specialties. My academic discipline is political science and think interning for an elected official or local government is one of the best things you can do because all sectors of the market intersection with politics and government to some degree. Politics and government may not be the right path for you, but most paths cross it so it’s a great way to gain perspective.