Why Career Advice Needs Context

Career advice often comes in the form of rules. Don't leave a job without another one lined up. Never take a pay cut. Always negotiate. Stay at least two years. Take the promotion when it's offered.

Any of that advice can make sense under the right circumstances, but it can't account for every person's financial situation, professional experience, responsibilities, organization, industry, or job market.

That's one of the reasons I developed the Control Your Career process. I was trained to start career development with interests, values, personality, skills, strengths, and goals, and I still use all of those things. But before we get into who you are and what you want, I want to understand what you're working with right now.

I call that Realistic Reality, the first stage of the Control Your Career process. It looks at three areas that can influence your career decisions: your personal reality, your career reality, and your external reality.

Your Personal Reality

Your career doesn't operate separately from the rest of your life, so finances, caregiving responsibilities, location, time, capacity, lifestyle, risk tolerance, and other priorities can all affect the decisions you make.

Take a significant pay cut as an example. Two people could be considering the exact same opportunity and see the same professional value in taking it, but one has enough financial flexibility to absorb the change while the other would experience serious financial strain. They're making the same career decision with very different information.

Understanding your personal reality doesn't mean deciding something will never be possible. A career change that doesn't work financially today may become possible after saving for a while, and an opportunity that requires relocation may make more sense at a different point in your family's life. Knowing your reality helps you understand what's possible now, what may take more time, and what you might need to do before you get there.

Your Career Reality

Your career reality is where you currently stand professionally, including your experience, skills, qualifications, compensation, career stage, reputation, network, responsibilities, and advancement opportunities.

This is where I want you to separate what you know from what you're assuming. Some professionals underestimate their experience or relationships even when they have strong qualifications and people willing to advocate for them. Others may believe they're ready for the next level without fully understanding what it requires or where they still have gaps.

If you believe you're ready for a promotion, for example, what evidence supports that? You may already be doing next-level work and have strong relationships with decision-makers, but you also need to know whether there's somewhere for you to go.

Two equally capable employees can have completely different advancement opportunities because one works for an organization with an open position while the other works in a flat structure with very little movement. The second person may be just as ready for a promotion, but their organization can't currently provide the type of growth they want.

Your External Reality

Your external reality includes the factors affecting your career that you have limited control over, including your organization, industry, function, labor market, economy, hiring activity, technology, and geography.

These factors are important because we have a tendency to internalize career problems that aren't necessarily ours to fix. A long job search can start to feel like evidence that you're doing something wrong when hiring in your profession has slowed considerably. Someone else may find work quickly because demand is stronger in their field, location, or specialty.

That's also why broad statements like "the job market is terrible" aren't particularly useful without more context. Conditions can look completely different depending on your function, industry, experience level, specialization, location, and employer type.

You can't control those conditions, but you can account for them. If hiring is slow in your field, you may need a longer timeline, a stronger network, different target organizations, or a strategy that allows you to remain employed while you search.

How the Three Realities Work Together

Consider a common career question: Should I leave my job?

Your personal reality includes whether you could financially handle an extended period without work, what obligations you have, and how much risk you're comfortable taking. Your career reality includes how competitive you are, whether your experience fits the opportunities you want, how strong your network is, and whether you're prepared for a job search. Your external reality includes demand in your field, who's hiring, and how long searches are currently taking.

None of those factors can make the decision for you, but together they give you much better information than a general rule about whether you should ever leave a job without another one lined up.

And being realistic isn't only about finding constraints. You may discover that your financial position gives you more flexibility than you thought, your experience is more valuable than you've been giving yourself credit for, or you have relationships that could open doors if you reconnect with them. Your company may be growing, or changes in your industry could put you in a strong position for what's coming next.

Career Advice Needs Your Context

"Never take a pay cut" may make sense for someone whose finances can't absorb one, while someone intentionally changing fields may have the resources to make that choice. "Always take the promotion" doesn't account for whether the responsibilities fit someone's life or goals. Even "go back to school" can be useful when a required credential is missing and unnecessarily expensive when education doesn't solve the problem you're trying to address.

Before you follow career advice, consider whether it makes sense within your personal, career, and external realities.

Realistic Reality is the starting point of my process because I want you to understand what's happening in your life, where you currently stand professionally, and what's happening around you before deciding what comes next. From there, you can consider who you are, what matters to you, what you're willing to compromise on, and what you want to do next.

I dig deeper into Realistic Reality and how these three areas affect your career decisions in this episode of Control Your Career.