1. Energy, not interest
Interest is cheap — you can be interested in astrophysics and hate doing it daily. Energy is the real signal. Look back at the last month and find the two hours you'd happily repeat. What were you doing, and who was around?
What career suits me? Start with evidence.
"What should I do with my life" is too big a question to answer directly. It gets tractable when you break it into five smaller ones you already have evidence for — from group projects, part-time jobs, side projects and the way you spend a free Saturday. Here's the version that works for students.
Five signals worth more than a job title
2. What drains you
Most bad career fits are not caused by missing a passion; they're caused by a daily activity that quietly exhausts you. Cold outreach, endless revisions, chairing meetings, solo work — name yours, because it rules out more roles than any strength rules in.
3. Your default role in a group
In group projects you slide into a role without being asked: the one who builds it, checks it, organises it, sells it, or makes it beautiful. That instinct predicts job satisfaction better than your degree title does.
4. The shape of the week you want
Long uninterrupted blocks or varied days with lots of people? Predictable hours or intensity you choose? Remote, hybrid or a city office? These constraints eliminate whole categories of role, so decide them before you scroll listings.
5. Which failure would sting most
Shipping something broken, being confidently wrong, letting a deadline slip, losing someone's trust, or putting out something mediocre. Whichever one you flinched at points straight at what you actually value.
Turn the signals into a direction
Once you've answered those five, you're usually pointing at one of five work types. Read the one that sounds most like you — each page lists the environments where that type thrives and the European graduate roles and internships that fit.
Where a quiz helps — and where it doesn't
A short quiz is good at reading preferences and bad at knowing your history. Use it to narrow from "anything" to a direction, then test that direction against reality: talk to two people doing the work, and do one small piece of it before you commit a year to it.