How To Get Clear About Your Career, with Theresa White
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Most job searches lack direction because people can’t answer a fundamental question: What specific work would actually energize you? According to Find Your Dream Job guest Theresa White, career clarity means more than understanding your skills and values — it requires knowing which specific roles genuinely excite you and feel realistic to pursue. Without this clarity, job seekers resort to applying broadly for any available position, leaving their professional networks unable to offer targeted assistance.
Theresa identifies three barriers that keep people stuck: analysis paralysis from endless worksheets that never translate into action, the sunk cost fallacy that traps them in unfulfilling careers due to the time and money already invested, and simply not knowing how to move from abstract career advice to concrete next steps. Her Career Clarity Formula centers on distinguishing between skills you’re good at and skills that energize you, then using informational interviews to test whether specific roles truly align with what makes you come alive.
About Our Guest:
Theresa White is the founder of Career Bloom.
Resources in This Episode:
- Connect with Theresa on LinkedIn
- Career Bloom Coaching
Transcript
Find Your Dream Job, Episode 517:
How To Get Clear About Your Career, with Theresa White
Airdate: September 3, 2025
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.
You’ll likely change jobs as many as a dozen times in the 40 years you may be in the workplace. How can you be sure you’re choosing the right positions?
Theresa White is here to talk about how to get clear about your career. She’s the founder of Career Bloom.
Her company helps you find the career you’re meant to do and the steps you need to take to land the job.
Theresa also hosts the Career Clarity Unlocked podcast, and she joins us from the city of Tampa in Florida.
Well, let’s jump right into it. Theresa, what do you mean by career clarity? What does that mean to you?
Theresa White:
Such a good question to start with. To me, career clarity is much more than just knowing your skills and your strengths and your values. It’s super helpful to know your skills and strengths and values, but to me, that isn’t enough.
If you know that you value growth and impact or creativity and autonomy, that is great. But the question left is like, okay, what job is that now? That is career clarity to me. So career clarity has to be actionable.
It has to be exact roles, like a group of roles you want to be targeting and not just vague ideas of, “I want a creative position,” but like specific top titles that really excite you.
And in addition to that, knowing your roles and the industries and companies that you feel really aligned with. And the best way for me to describe career clarity is that it feels right in your gut.
It’s not like the thing of like, “Yeah, I can do this job. I’ve done this for 10 years. I’m good at it.” But you feel inside like, yeah, this makes me come alive. I’m excited to do this. And I’m confident that it is possible for me.”
Maybe it’s a little bit of a stretch that allows me to upskill or network, but I do believe it’s realistic for me to obtain this.
Mac Prichard:
So know the specific job you want. Know the industry where you want to be. That’s very different, isn’t it, Theresa, from someone who might say, and I mean this in a well-meaning way, “Let me know if you hear of anything.”
Why is it important to have that career clarity, especially in today’s job market?
Theresa White:
Oh, yes. So, my background is in recruiting, and there are countless times where people say, “Well, I can do anything. I’m really good. I’m really good at multitasking. I can learn a lot of things. I’m open to it all.” Or like when you tell friends or family, like, yeah, “I’m open to anything, just tell me if you hear of anything.”
It makes it actually really, really hard for people to help you because we can’t. I don’t know what I should keep my ears and eyes open for, or where I can see you? And then, in addition to that, people not being able to help you effectively when you’re going through a job search, it often becomes this, what we often call the spray-and-pray job search, where you’re sending out hundreds and hundreds of applications, hoping something sticks.
And then even if something sticks, let’s say you send out 800 applications, what are the chances that the one that’s stuck is actually a good fit? And most likely you’re gonna go into the same cycle a year or two later.
And to me, career clarity is the thing that I keep seeing over and over as the thing that, that one thing that breaks that pattern. It’s how you actually move toward work that feels aligned and fulfilling.
Once you have a clear direction, it streamlines your job search; everything becomes so much easier, faster. You can really position yourself well for those roles. And that’s when you actually go through a job search that’s more effective, more efficient, and you actually land a job that really is aligned with what you want to do.
Mac Prichard:
What are the warning signs that you don’t have career clarity? I think you’ve touched on some of them, but what are some of the most common signs that you see?
Theresa White:
It’s the spray-and-pray job search method. You’re applying for this, you’re applying for that. You are tweaking your resume for the 50th time to target a different direction. Your LinkedIn profile isn’t clearly targeted towards one group of roles, one type of industry, or companies. It’s kind of like a little bit here, a little bit there, no direction fully that you’re targeting.
Mac Prichard:
And we’re all going to be in the workplace for many years, some of us as many as 40. Is it normal, Theresa, in your experience, to have periods where you’re not clear about your career?
Theresa White:
One hundred percent. I had no clarity for at least the first 30 years of my life. It wasn’t until the mid-30s that that question became so big for me that I became really passionate about the question of, “How do we figure this out?”
And most clients, all clients I work with, no matter if they’re in their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties – they were struggling with that question of, “What am I meant to do? What would feel fulfilling and meaningful to me?”
I think it’s one of the biggest questions we as humans have, and not enough guidance on how to find our answers to it.
Mac Prichard:
Say more about what stops people from getting career clarity. What are common barriers that you see in your work with people who try to sort this out?
Theresa White:
So I see three big reasons people struggle with finding career clarity. And again, this was myself eight years ago, and I see it over and over with clients. The first thing is overthinking. It’s being stuck in analysis paralysis. It’s going through months or years of filling out values, worksheets are taking quizzes and journaling, and doing all the things, but never moving forward because it’s not actionable.
The second one is the sunk cost fallacy. So, sunk cost fallacy is when we put a lot of effort and time into something, and we stick in that lane because of what we put into it, even though it’s no longer serving us. So with our careers, we put so much time, energy, money, and education into where we are currently, and we worked so hard to get where we are today.
And even if it’s no longer fulfilling, we stick in that lane. And we don’t often realize that those same skills and expertise that we build can be applied in totally different ways and different roles, industries, and settings. Because it’s really hard to see outside of the lane that we’ve always been in.
And then third, the biggest one is not knowing how to gain career clarity. It’s not even knowing where to start. Because no one teaches us how to actually figure out the roles that are most aligned with us. Again, there’s so much vague abstract advice, but how to translate that into a real, actionable step–– that is missing.
And that is the question I became so passionate about. And that’s when I created a framework, which is now called the Career Clarity Formula, that helps people identify what energizes them and then translate that into a concrete career direction.
And I’d love to walk you through the assess, align, and apply strategy that I teach in my program.
Mac Prichard:
Okay, well, let’s, let’s talk about that and take those three steps one by one. And the first one you mentioned is assess. It’s, and I know this involves making a list of skills that you’re good at.
Say more about this step. Why is it important to have this list of skills, and how do you recommend getting started?
Theresa White:
Good question. So first, if you want to find a career that is realistic for us to get into, we have to start with what is already inside of us. What are all the skills we have? And it’s not just the skills that are officially part of our job description, but also the intangible things we do.
For example, I worked with a merchandiser and she said, “There’s really nothing I like about my job, none of the skills I like.” As we dug deeper, we figured out she loves helping new hires get acclimated to the environment. She’s the one to take them under her wings, to show them everything, to teach them.
And even though that wasn’t part of her job or her job description, and she wasn’t even valued for doing that, it’s been something she’s done for 10 years and actually has a lot of experience in. And it’s something she didn’t think she would qualify for to have a role that revolves around that.
But once you really get clear about what the skills are that you have, even the ones that aren’t the ones you get paid for, it becomes so much more possible to have that full picture of what you’re actually capable of and then identify which of those aligns with it.
And I’m happy to break that down even more into the different types of skills, if that is helpful.
Mac Prichard:
It would be. What I’d like to do, Theresa, is take a break right now, because I think it’s going to take us more than a minute or two to walk through those steps.
So stay with us. When we come back, we’ll continue our conversation with Theresa White about how to get clear about your career.
I’m talking with Theresa White. She’s the founder of Career Bloom.
Her company helps you find the career you’re meant to do and the steps you need to take to land the job.
Theresa also hosts the Career Clarity Unlocked podcast, and she joins us from the city of Tampa in Florida.
Now, Theresa, before the break, we were talking about how to get clear about your career, and we talked about why this is important, why people struggle with it, and the difference it can make in your job search when you do have career clarity.
And now we’re digging into how to get that clarity. And we talked about the first of the three steps you recommend. And the first one was to know the skills that you have. And you shared a story about a client you worked with.
For the benefit of listeners who want to get clear about their own skills, how do they figure out what’s going to matter? How do you do that?
Theresa White:
Absolutely. So I divide skills into three categories, which makes it easier to create your own list of skills that you have. So the first category of skills that you want to identify is the hard skills. So those are your concrete abilities.
It’s answering the question: What specific tools, software, or technical methods can you use? So those are the really measurable, chop-specific competencies, technical proficiencies, your software knowledge, your certifications, and any industry-specific expertise.
If you, for example, use the example of a marketing manager, those might include Google Analytics, Salesforce CRM, SEO optimization, and marketing automations.
Mac Prichard:
And if you’re at home trying to figure out what skills matter most, how do you do that? What exercises do you take people through?
Theresa White:
Perfect. So for all the skills in this first step, write them all down. We’ll figure out later if those skills that we actually want to be doing. I recommend starting just with a big brainstorm of writing them all down.
Mac Prichard:
Okay. So you write all your skills down, and that’s the first step. That’s the assessment. The second step to get clear career clarity is to figure out which skills drain you and which ones energize you.
And I was surprised when I read that, because I guess we all do have skills that we’re good at, but we don’t get energy from them, do we?
Theresa White:
That is a huge distinction of skills that energize and inspire you, and skills that drain you. And there are a lot of skills that we are really, really good at, but they leave us feeling really drained and depleted.
And I always invite my clients to think of them like a battery. And there are things you do that energize your battery. And then there are things that you do that drain your battery. And you want to start going through the skills on your list and think about using each skill for an extended period of time.
So let’s say SEO optimization. You’re going to do this for four, five, or six hours. No doubt that you’re going to be good at it, really good, likely.
And when you go through this exercise, don’t focus on how good the outcome is or if you should be enjoying that skill because you’ve done it for the last 10 years. Just tune in to how you feel inside your body.
Are you going to feel really drained and exhausted? Is your battery empty? Would you feel energized, motivated, and empowered? Is your battery going to be full?
And with that visual in mind of a battery, you’re going to go through your list of skills, you’re going to cross out the ones that drain and exhaust you, and you’re going to circle the ones that energize and motivate you.
Mac Prichard:
Is it possible to have a career where you don’t have to use any skills that drain you, or does that just come with work?
Theresa White:
Well, I don’t think there’s ever going to be a hundred percent, zero percent. I say if a good two-thirds of the time you’re using skills that energize you, that is fantastic.
Even for me, I love my job, but do I love doing my taxes? No, I don’t. It’s a small portion. I can live with that. But if I had to do that all day, every day, I would be drained. So there should be more energizing than draining skills.
Mac Prichard:
Okay. So a proportion of two-thirds versus one-third. So you’ve done that assessment, you know, your skills, the second step is you’ve figured out which ones energize you and which ones drain you.
And your third recommended step for getting career clarity is to look for jobs that match your skills. How do you do this, Theresa? How do you find those positions?
Theresa White:
Yes, so for the third step, apply now to find the jobs that actually revolve around the roles that energize you. And there are two ways you can do that. And you can also combine those two.
The first way is to go to job boards, for example, Mac’s List, and search by using keywords. And you’re going to be using the keywords of your energizing skills, the ones that you circled. And you’re not going to be using job titles for your searches.
So, for example, if you identified speech writing, Adobe Creative Suite, leadership, emotional intelligence, and project management as things that really energize you and fill your battery, you drop those into the search bar and then see what jobs come up that revolve around those skills.
You want to play around with these different combinations of your energizing skills until you find a position that you’re like, yeah, more than two-thirds of that role are the things that really fill my cup.
Mac Prichard:
So you’ve found these job postings. What do you do with these position descriptions next?
Theresa White:
Great question. So I’m going to bring that into the second way that helps you identify aligned roles.
You can also use any AI tool like ChatGPT and use the prompt to act as an expert career coach and write my ideal job description. My ideal job revolves around using all of the following skills, and then you enter the list of your energizing skills.
And then you will also get a job description, and as always with any AI tools, I recommend using that as a first draft, and then you refine it, and you rewrite it. So it really feels like, yes, this would be so energizing. That is what I’d love to do.
And then you use a second prompt where you ask ChatGPT or the tool that you’re using to provide the eight most likely job titles for the following job description, and you copy and paste your ideal job description from the previous prompt or from your previous output.
And this is also what you can do when you find these job postings on Mac’s List or any other job board that you use those job postings and also ask ChatGPT the same question. Because, as we know, the same job is called something different in every company. And this is how you get a group of job titles that now match what you truly want to be doing.
Mac Prichard:
And in your experience, when you do this, you’ve got these job titles.
What happens next? Do you then go out and start talking to people in informational interviews? Do you look at the job boards? How do you apply this knowledge?
Theresa White:
Great question. So, once on paper, you feel like, “Yes, I have a list of five to 10 job titles that like, yes, that feels really good.” That excites me. On paper, it looks exactly like the role I would want to do.
I highly recommend informational interviews as the next step because you want to be talking to people who do the work you want to do to see what their lived experience is like. And that’s when you can test, like, “Is this really aligned for me?”
If I hear them talking about their day-to-day, do I get excited? I’m like, “Oh my God, yes, I want your job.” Or do you feel like, no, somehow that isn’t aligned. And that’s where we can then iterate and tweak and be like, “OK, this part of the job I love, this part not so much.”
What are more roles that go in the direction that I really enjoy?
Mac Prichard:
How do you find these people, Theresa? You’ve got the job titles, and you want to talk to people who are doing this work. Where do you find them?
Theresa White:
LinkedIn. You can search by people and by job titles. LinkedIn is like a gold mine for finding anyone who you’re interested in professionally.
And my recommendation is once you find people in those roles that you’re interested in, lead with curiosity. Tell them like, “I just realized that those roles feel really aligned with what I want to do. I’m so curious what your day-to-day looks like. I would love to talk to you. Are you open to sharing a little bit about what your experience, what your lived experience looks like in this role?”
And if you lead with this genuine curiosity, people are very likely to reciprocate and want to help and share about their experiences.
Mac Prichard:
And how do you know that those conversations are successful, that they’re giving you career clarity?
You meet with a dozen or more people, perhaps several dozen. What happens next? How do you know this is working?
Theresa White:
You can feel it in your body. You can really feel it in your body. You will get off of some conversations where you’re like, “No, I would not want to do that.” That would again, going back to that energizing and draining, like you can really have to picture yourself doing this day in and day out when you talk to them and listen to your body. Would you have an inner battery that will feel empty and drained?
You’re like, “No, if I had to do this all day, every day, I wouldn’t be happy. Or do you picture yourself doing that job, and you’re like, “I would be so excited. I would want to do that every day. This makes me come alive.”
And if you have two or three of those conversations where you’re like, “Yes, this gets me so excited.” That is when you can be quite sure that you have found a direction that feels very aligned and fulfilling for you.
Mac Prichard:
And how does knowing what excites you and what you don’t want to do help you in your job search when you’re ready to apply for jobs and interview for positions?
Theresa White:
You can position yourself so much more effectively for those roles. You can, once you’re clear about the roles that you’re targeting, whenever a hiring manager posts a position, it is because they want to solve a problem.
So once you know what job titles you’re targeting, you can find out what the problem is that you’re gonna be solving in those roles. And then you can position yourself as the solution to that problem. And you can do that on your LinkedIn profile, in your resume, when you’re having informational interviews, in job interviews, and in all your conversations.
And you become known as the solution that the hiring managers you want to be hired by are looking for. And that is the piece that then accelerates your job search and makes it so much more effective and efficient in the end.
Mac Prichard:
Well, it’s been a terrific conversation, Theresa. Now, tell us what’s next for you.
Theresa White:
I’m super excited because I am right now relaunching by popular demand my signature master class, Start Your Career Change in Three Simple Steps, which is the exact training that’s helped hundreds of women get the clear path and proven steps to finding a career they love.
And I just opened enrollment, and you can save your spot now on careerbloomcoaching.com. And I’d love to see you there and dive even deeper into the steps that we shared today.
Mac Prichard:
We’ll be sure to include a link to your website, careerbloomcoaching.com, and in the show notes.
And I know Theresa, you also invite listeners to connect with you on LinkedIn. When you do reach out to Theresa, please tell her you heard her on Find Your Dream Job.
Now, Theresa, given all the great advice you’ve shared today, what’s the one thing you want a listener to remember about how to get clear about your career?
Theresa White:
Really listen to what’s inside of you and what energizes you and what makes you come alive. And find roles that revolve around that.
It is possible no matter how stuck or how invested you feel in your current path, it is possible without starting over to tweak that, to change, and find something that does make you come alive.
Mac Prichard:
Next week, our guest will be Scott Thompson.
He’s the managing director of Lexicon Solutions.
It’s a boutique IT and engineering recruiting firm in Portland, Oregon.
The job market right now feels tighter than ever.
But whatever the unemployment rate, you can get hired faster by avoiding common mistakes and making smart strategic choices.
Join us next Wednesday when Scott Thompson and I talk about how to stand out in a competitive market.
Until next time, thanks for letting us help you find your dream job.
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 Matt Fiorillo. And our music is by Freddy Trujillo.
This is Mac Prichard. See you next week.
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