Career Hypotheses Canvas

Instead of betting on one next move, write two or three possible paths as hypotheses, test each with small experiments you can run while you keep your current job, and put them in a calendar with a date to decide. Let the results, not the daydream, decide.

Learning about a career by trying provisional versions of it is practitioner craft built on qualitative research (Ibarra, 2003; Burnett & Evans, 2016). Career adaptability, the set of resources the experiments draw on, has strong meta-analytic support (Rudolph, Lavigne & Zacher, 2017). The effort bands, the review rhythm and the 1 to 10 scores are rules of thumb.

Use it when:

• You know what you don't want but not what comes next.
• You have two or three options in your head and keep going round in circles.
• You are thinking about a bigger change: another field, your own business or a move from specialist to leader.

Skip it when:

• You have already chosen a path and want concrete goals for it: use 1.10 1-Year Personal OKRs.
• You first need to know what matters to you: start with 1.1 Values & Motivators Worksheet or 1.8 Workview and Lifeview.

This canvas turns around the familiar advice to look inward until the answer appears. In studied career changes, people found out who to become by acting: they tried provisional versions of a possible self and read the response, rather than relying on analysis alone (Ibarra, 1999; Ibarra, 2003). That work is qualitative, with little controlled testing, so treat the method as well argued practitioner craft.

What is strongly supported is a neighboring finding the optional resources check uses. Career adaptability, the resources of concern, control, curiosity and confidence, goes with better career planning, exploration and employment outcomes across a large meta-analytic record (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012; Rudolph, Lavigne & Zacher, 2017). The experiments are craft; the capacities they build are backed.

So each hypothesis gets a question, an experiment and a decision point, risks must be researched rather than feared, and the experiments go into the calendar, because a plan with dates gets run and the evidence is meant to rewrite it.

Write two or three hypotheses and make at least one genuinely different from what you do now. For each, write why it appeals, tied to a value or strength, the biggest gap between you and it, and the one question whose answer would most change your mind.

Strong answer: "Independent procurement adviser for small municipalities. Appeals: autonomy and variety (top values in 1.1). Biggest gap: I have never sold my own services. Question: will small municipalities pay for outside help, or do they do it themselves?" Not: "Something more meaningful. Is it right for me?"

Illustrative example: the role, the organizations and all scores are made up.

A procurement specialist at a municipality in Sweden feels stuck after eight years and writes three hypotheses.

Section 1: (1) category manager at a construction company: do they value public-sector experience? (2) Independent adviser to small municipalities: will they pay for outside help? (3) Sustainability role in energy: is the work strategic or mostly reporting?

Section 2: coffee with two category managers; one paid half-day workshop for a neighboring municipality (more attractive if a second session is booked); a short course and one conversation with a sustainability lead. Researched risk for (2): advisers told her steady clients took about a year.

Section 3: course in Q1; conversations and the workshop in Q2; a second workshop in Q3 if the first leads anywhere; Q4 open. Monthly review on the first Friday; decision date 31 October.

Section 4: (2) scores highest but feasibility is weak; (3) lost its pull after the conversation. Decision: keep (1) and (2), deprioritize (3), and test client finding for three more months while employed.