What to Do When You Don’t Know What You Want to Do, with Steven Rothberg
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What do you do when someone asks what kind of work you want, and you genuinely don’t know? Steven Rothberg, founder of College Recruiter, has an answer, and it starts with a legal pad and three columns. In this episode, Steven walks through his framework for identifying your career sweet spot by mapping your competencies, interests, and values side by side.
He explains why telling employers “I’ll do anything” is the kiss of death in a job search and what it signals to recruiters managing dozens of open roles at once. Whether you’re a new graduate or a mid-career professional at a crossroads, his approach will help you focus your search, perform better in interviews, and land a role where you’ll want to stay.
About Our Guest:
- Steven Rothberg is the founder of the College Recruiter job board.
Resources in This Episode:
- Connect with Steven on LinkedIn.
Transcript
Find Your Dream Job, Episode 544:
What to Do When You Don’t Know What You Want to Do, with Steven Rothberg
Airdate: March 25, 2026
Mac Prichard:
This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life.
I’m your host, Mac Prichard. I’m also the founder of Mac’s List. It’s a job board in the Pacific Northwest that helps you find a fulfilling career.
Every Wednesday, I talk to a different expert about the tools you need to get the work you want.
Your job search gets easier when you have clear goals. That’s because you only apply for the jobs you know you want and with the employers where you’ll want to work.
But what if you’re not sure what’s next for you?
Steven Rothberg is here to talk about what to do when you don’t know what you want to do.
He’s the founder of the College Recruiter job board.
Steven believes that every student and recent graduate deserves a great career and that it should be easy for employers to hire them.
He joins us from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Well, let’s jump right into it, Steven. Why is it so hard for many of us to know what you want to do in your career?
Steven Rothberg:
I think it goes to the fact that there are several factors that are really relevant for most job seekers. The first one that most people think about is, “What am I good at?” And when I talk about that, I’m very often reminded of things that my father would say to me when I was a kid.
He was always really good at math, top of his class, that kind of thing. When he graduated from college or university, I grew up in Canada. So he graduated from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, for those who know that geography, in the ‘50s. The primary career for people like him was accounting.
And so he went into accounting, worked for a few firms, including some really big international ones, and he hated it. From the way he put it and what I heard from a number of his clients, he was really good at it but didn’t really like it. It was just boring.
So I think that people who are looking for their next job, their next career path, yes, it’s important to look for something that you’re good at, but you can’t stop there. There are other factors too.
Mac Prichard:
What can happen in your career if you do feel stuck or you’re unsure about the direction you want to take?
Steven Rothberg:
You know, what ends up happening, I think, is one of two things. If you’re not well matched to the job, it requires skill, work, effort, whatever that’s just beyond you, then you feel a tremendous amount of stress, and you probably underperform.
You’re at a really good likelihood of quitting or being fired. That’s not good for anybody, including the employer. The employer doesn’t want to see people quit. They don’t want to fire people.
Sometimes it just has to happen on one side or the other. The other option, Mac, is that you’re well above what the job requires. Your skill level, your work ethic, whatever it might be, are far in excess of what the employer needs for that job.
That’s when you run into boredom. And the consequence of that is shockingly the same. Again, people tend to quit, people tend to get fired.
Mac Prichard:
And when that happens, if you’re not sure about what you want to do next, and you’ve either been dismissed or you’ve resigned, what can happen if you don’t figure out the answer to that question?
Steven Rothberg:
Extended unemployment, financial trouble. If you’re married, it can lead to marital troubles. I mean, nothing good comes out of that. If you’re incredibly fortunate and, you know, your father’s name is Elon or something, and you have a pile of money, you know, at your disposal, then maybe not having a job isn’t the worst thing in the world.
But for virtually everybody else, it’s so important that the work that we do is meaningful, that there is purpose there, and that maybe, just maybe, you can pay your bills.
Mac Prichard:
Your website serves college students and recent graduates. Many of us, early in our careers, struggle with figuring out what to do. Why is it harder for people at the start of their careers to figure out what they want to do next?
Steven Rothberg:
Yeah, you know the expression that those who forget history are bound to repeat it. Somewhat along those same lines is that those who don’t have much history are finding it hard to predict the future.
I’m 59. I’ve been in more or less the same occupation for over three decades. It’s pretty easy for me to know what tomorrow, next week, and next month are going to look like, even maybe next year, my job doesn’t really change that much.
But if I’m 21, 22, 23 years old, and maybe I was a lifeguard during the summer, maybe I worked part time in an Amazon warehouse when I was in college, maybe I had an internship, and now I’m graduating and going into my, really my first full-time permanent job, you really don’t know what that’s like.
Similarly, if you’re 50 and you change career paths, you were a nurse, and now you’ve opened a retail shop, or whatever it may be, you also don’t really know very well what each day, each week, each month is going to bring.
So it becomes a lack-of-data problem, if that makes sense. You can’t really look back and see what’s happened and be able to reliably predict what’s going to happen. So, you know, there are some ways that we can tackle that, though.
Mac Prichard:
Yeah, so uncertainty comes with the territory, and we’re going to talk about ways to answer that question in a moment.
Before we get there, Steven, what mistakes do you see people make when they’re trying to figure out the path forward, whether they’re a recent graduate or someone who’s mid-career or senior, either looking for the next job or changing careers entirely?
Steven Rothberg:
The two most common ones that I see are the one that I was talking about a little bit earlier, which is looking for a job where you’re good at the work, but maybe not all that interested in it. It’s just that there are other factors other than just what your skills or your competencies are. I won’t pound that dead horse to death again.
But the other factor is job seekers who will say things to employers, to themselves, to others, like I’m willing to do anything, which is to me the kiss of death. When you go to an employer or ask a friend for help finding a job and say to them, “I’ll do anything,” what that really says is that you don’t know what you want to do, and you want somebody else to make that decision for you.
Employers don’t have the time or inclination to be your career counselor. They have a role open, they’ve got a seat to fill, and you, as the candidate, need to sell them on why you are the best candidate for that job.
Not just qualified, but the best. And if you say to them, I don’t really care what work I do, I just wanna work, that automatically says to an employer that you are never going to be the best candidate for that job, for any job.
Mac Prichard:
You have thousands of employers who use your website. You serve a national, even a global audience. And so you talk to employers all the time, Steven.
Say more about what employers think when they hear a candidate who, for understandable reasons, you have bills to pay, or you’re just eager to work, says, I can do anything. Why is that not a positive signal for employers?
Steven Rothberg:
Yeah. First of all, I think it’s great, Mac, that you touched on the, you know, they have bills to pay. We all do.
I’ve seen various forms of this, but there are these little great cartoons with, you know, job seekers meeting with a recruiter, and the recruiter says something like, “What interests you in this job?” And the job seeker’s response is, “Because I have rent to pay.”
It’s like, well, hello, we all have rent to pay. We all should get paid fairly for our work. So nobody should ever be ashamed of the fact that their primary interest in taking that job is to meet their financial obligations, to support themselves, their families, et cetera. That’s honorable. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.
When an employer, whether it’s a recruiter or the hiring manager, the hiring manager is usually the person that you’ll end up reporting to after being hired.
When they hear from you as a candidate that you’ll do anything, what it really says to them is that you don’t know what you want to do, and you want them to tell you; it’s a real turnoff. What candidates often don’t appreciate is that recruiters, especially at larger companies, are at any given time working on filling dozens of different roles.
They might have 20 different roles that they’re working on. If they’re particularly difficult, they might only have half a dozen. But even if they have half a dozen and they get, say, 50 to 100 applications per role, you’re talking about hundreds of candidates that they’re working with in a month.
They simply don’t have the time to play 20 questions with you to try to ferret out information about what you want to do, what’s going to be a good match.
Mac Prichard:
Well, let’s pause there, Steven, because I want to take a break. And when we come back, let’s talk about how to answer that question, what you want to do, because you have some very practical tips.
So stay with us. When we return, Steven Rothberg will continue to share his advice on what to do when you don’t know what you’ll want to do.
We’re back in the Mac’s List studio. I’m talking with Steven Rothberg.
He’s the founder of the College Recruiter Job Board.
Steven’s company believes that every student and recent graduate deserves a great career and that it should be easy for employers to hire them.
He joins us from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Now, Steven, before the break, we were talking about what to do when you don’t know what you want to do. And we talked a lot about the consequences in a job search in your career when you can’t answer that question, and the benefits as well.
Let’s talk about how to figure that out. I know you’ve got a model that you share with job seekers when you sit down with candidates. What’s the best first step, Steven, to answer what you want to do when you don’t know what you want to do?
Steven Rothberg:
Yeah, what I tell people, whether they’re friends, family, or just, you know, somebody that I hardly know, but I, but they, I have a conversation with them online, actually, you know, in person in line at a coffee shop, whatever is grab a legal pad, throw a line horizontally across the top of it, and then two lines vertically.
So basically, what you’re doing is dividing up that sheet into three columns. At the top of that first box, top left corner, write the word competencies. That’s stuff that you’re good at. In the middle column at the top, write interests. That’s stuff that it’s like, this is fun. I like to do this. The third column is values. And that’s what’s important to you.
And then go down that first column, and this is gonna sound goofy, Mac, but list every single thing that you can think of that you’re good at. And maybe you wanna like do that, go away, come back another day, because people will often forget about things.
I’m not talking just about I’m good at math, and I’m good at creative writing, or things that are work-related. I mean everything you’re good at.
Can you do a play with a yo-yo better than anybody else you know? Put that down. Do you, you know, when you’re playing golf, can you hit that drive 300 yards? Put that down. No matter how irrelevant you think it is to your work, throw it on that list.
Mac Prichard:
How does that help you to make a long laundry list of all the things you’re good at?
Steven Rothberg:
Yeah, after step three, then you’ll start to see that you’ll sort of sort of you’ll be like, that’s why I put golf down.
Mac Prichard:
Okay, so let’s walk through it.
Steven Rothberg:
Under interests, the same kind of thing, everything that you like to do. And it might be doing crossword puzzles, it might be figuring out a formula in a spreadsheet. Again, personal work values, same thing.
It might be social justice, it might be feeding the homeless, it doesn’t have to be a progressive thing. It might even just be like playing with my kids, anything there.
Here’s the fun part.
Mac Prichard:
Okay, but before we go for it, how long do these lists get?
Steven Rothberg:
Dozens, dozens of words. Yeah, we’re talking dozens of words. Under competencies, you’re going to have probably at least two dozen, maybe three, four dozen things, same sort of thing under interests, same sort of thing under values.
Mac Prichard:
Okay, so it’s not just the things you do at work that you think might matter to a hiring manager.
Steven Rothberg:
Correct, yeah. I mean, if you are, Mac, if you think that you are like really good at vacuuming and you really like it and it matters to you that your home is well vacuumed, you’re gonna have vacuuming under all three lists. So they do not need to be unique. And that leads me into the next step, and this is where the magic happens.
Mac Prichard:
Two more mechanical questions, first steps. How much time typically do you recommend people spend putting together this list? OK, a couple of hours, yellow pad, three columns.
What you’re good at, what interests you, and what you care about, your values. You started at nine, you took a break for lunch, now you come back, what do you do next Steven?
Steven Rothberg:
Now you blur your eyes, you look at that sheet of paper, and you literally try not to focus. And what you’re kind of, and I don’t mean like cross your eyes like your mother tells you don’t do because they’re never gonna uncross.
Like I’m not talking that, I’m just talking like a slight, you wanna see sort of the whole page at once, not just each individual word. And what you’re looking for are commonalities. So I use the vacuuming example.
You want to like find words or phrases or thoughts that are the same or similar in all three columns. That is your sweet spot. So if vacuuming is something you’re good at, that you like to do, and that’s important to you, that is probably one of the kinds of jobs that you should be looking for.
Mac Prichard:
Okay. So I want to pause because again, you run a job board, and I say this with admiration, your site is much bigger than Mac’s List. So, you’ve got thousands, tens of thousands of positions on your site.
And so you’re talking to employers all the time. You’re talking to candidates all the time. Why do you recommend people do this? What have you seen happen when people follow this process?
Steven Rothberg:
They tend to zero in on the kinds of jobs that they’re well-suited for much faster. So I know you’ve talked about it in the past, but it’s better to hunt with a rifle than a shotgun. And this leads you to that.
Rather than applying to every job under the sun, which then leads you to not having time to apply well and follow up with the employer, you end up zeroing in or narrowing your list. And so you do a much better job with fewer potential job openings.
And that greatly increases the chances of getting an interview, getting an offer, and getting hired. Once you’ve been hired, it also greatly increases the chances that you’re going to be there for years rather than just maybe months because you’re going to be good at the job.
You’re going to be interested in the job, and it’s going to align with your values.
You’re going to perform better, they’re going to want you to stay, and you’re going to want to stay.
Mac Prichard:
In your experience, again, based on hundreds of conversations you’ve had with both candidates and employers, how many applicants actually figure this out and go through this or another process, and what happens when they do?
Steven Rothberg:
If it were a lot, that would be great. It would also mean that you and I would not be talking about this. It’s very few. I’ve heard a number of career counselors talk about this. Sometimes the words are a little bit different, but the approach is basically the same.
And what it really boils down to, again, going back to my dad in the fifties, yes, it’s important to do work that you’re good at, but it’s also important, just as important, to do work that you care about, that matters to you.
And if all three of those things don’t line up, the chances are that you’re going to want to leave that job or they’re going to want you to leave that job far sooner than you should.
Mac Prichard:
So you’ve done the work, you’ve figured out what you want to do, and you’re focusing on the job postings that are most relevant. What else should you be doing with the information now that you know what you want to do next?
Steven Rothberg:
Yeah, and I know you’ve talked about this too, and I’ve seen this on Mac’s List. Using objective, measurable data in your resume and in your interviews is really critical. It’s one thing to say to an employer that I did well in school. It’s another thing to say to an employer that you were in the top 10%.
It’s one thing to say to an employer, I learn really quickly. It’s another thing to say to an employer, I was promoted three times within 18 months. And so that comes into play with those competencies mostly.
It also inevitably bleeds over into the interests and values because if you’re good at something but you really hate it, you’re probably not gonna make the best use of what you’re good at.
Mac Prichard:
Okay, it’s been a great conversation, Steven. So tell us what’s next for you.
Steven Rothberg:
So what’s next for College Recruiter? We’re just about to roll up some pretty interesting new tech. One of the things that really frustrates a lot of job seekers when they come to a job board, just about any job board, is they go to the job board, they run a search, they find a job that they want to apply to, they click on the apply button, and then they’re taken over to the employer’s website, often the applicant tracking system, the ATS.
And they’re faced with a wonderful 48-page process to kind of go through with maybe 20 required questions, the questions that the recruiter really needs you to answer in order to consider you as somebody they want to move forward.
And then you might be faced with the same number or even more optional questions. And these are things that a lot of recruiters will put into the process because, at one point, they thought it would be a good idea to know what your shoe size was.
But over time, they forget to remove them when they don’t actually need them. Our tech will allow candidates to apply to those jobs on our site just with the required fields. So takes the candidates far less time.
One of the benefits for us is that far more well-qualified candidates apply to jobs when they’re not asked for a ton of irrelevant information.
Mac Prichard:
Terrific. Well, I know that our audience can learn more about this new service and your work by visiting your website, collegerecruiter.com, and that you also invite audience members to connect with you on LinkedIn.
When you do reach out to Steven on LinkedIn, please be sure to say that you saw or heard him on Find Your Dream Job.
Now, Steven, given all the great advice you’ve shared today, what’s the one thing you want our audience to remember about what to do?
Steven Rothberg:
When you don’t know what you want to do, it’s up to you. It’s not up to the recruiter. It’s not up to your friend. It’s not up to your family member.
At the end of the day, we each need to figure out what we really want to do. And that includes what we care about, what is interesting to us. We all deserve to have a great career.
Mac Prichard:
Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job.
You can support our show and help others find it by leaving a review and rating on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Have a question or a suggestion? Email me at mac@macslist.org, or connect with me on LinkedIn.
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This show is produced by Mac’s List.
Susan Thornton-Hough schedules our guests and writes our newsletter. Lisa Kislingbury Anderson manages our social media and creates our transcripts.
Our sound engineer and editor is Megan Hattie Stahl. Our music is by Freddy Trujillo.
This is Mac Prichard. See you next week.
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