From Confused to Curious: Exploring Career Paths with Google's Career Dreamer
A reflection on the career discovery process - and a look at Google’s new tool for exploring possibilities.
Hey, I’m Merry 👋 I’ve spent the last decade designing learning programs, helping people take their next career steps, and building products that support adult learning - at places like Amazon and TikTok. With a Master’s in Education from Harvard, I’m all about helping people figure out what they’re good at, what they love, and how to build careers that actually fit. This Substack is where I share advice and lessons on navigating the workplace and growing in your career.
When I was in sixth grade, a career quiz told me I was destined to become a forest ranger. I remember circling answers on a long, confusing assessment - none of it feeling remotely relevant. At the time, I had no idea what a forest ranger actually did, and more importantly, I didn’t feel like it had anything to do with my interests up to that point.
The Limitations of "Discovery" Tools
When we’re young, we’re told to use career assessments to figure out what we want to be. But most of these tools show you a narrow slice of the workforce. You answer a long list of questions, get a list of roles based on your responses, and are expected to pick a path from there.
But how can you dream up a career and get excited when you don’t even know what else is out there? Or how different jobs and industries relate to one another?
That’s why so many of us ignore the results, guess our way through decisions, or follow the “safe” and practical option - usually based on what people around us seem to be doing. If you’re one of the lucky few, maybe the quiz actually gets it right. But for most of us, the clarity comes later.
Real Experience Is Where Clarity Comes From
I didn’t become a park ranger. And I didn’t have a “dream job” in college either. I studied business in undergrad mostly because it felt broad enough to keep options open. It wasn’t until I landed my first real job - operations management at Amazon - that I began to understand what kind of work actually energized me.
Here’s what I discovered:
I loved solving broken processes.
I loved finding ways to maximize the resources we already had.
I found purpose in helping people grow.
I dreaded repetitive work and working on spreadsheets that lacked human connection.
That clarity didn’t come from a test. It came from doing the work, experimenting, and reflecting.
And that pattern repeated with every new role. The more I explored, the more data I gathered about myself. I got a better sense of my values, working style, and what skills gave me energy - all key data points for career discovery.
A New Tool That Caught My Eye: Career Dreamer
The good news is that we now have better tools to help guide us in career discovery. With generative AI tools dominating the edtech scene, I’ve been spending a lot of time taking a look at the different tools people can use to figure out the right career path for them. One I came across recently is Career Dreamer from Google (not sponsored - just genuinely found it interesting). There are a lot of platforms that try to help you find your next career move, but I thought this one did a solid job. It’s not a perfect solution, but I do think it’s an interesting concept, and I’ve been playing around with it to see how it might help surface new ideas around careers.
Here’s how it works:
You input your current or most recent role and the industry you’re in. The tool then suggests common tasks you might’ve done in that role, and you select the ones that actually resonate with your experience. After, it asks you to select skills that apply to you.
You can add more roles you’ve had in the past (I’d consider only adding the ones that you liked working in; otherwise, it might recommend roles that you would not want to do), as well as your education experiences and your interests (e.g., cooking, design, volunteering). Then, based on both your experiences, responsibilities, education, skills, and interests, it generates a prompt that goes to Gemini.
Here’s the auto-prompt the tool created based on my responses:
Once you hit “Explore paths”, that’s where the magic happens. You get potential roles you could move into. It’s like a little glimpse into parallel universes you might’ve never considered - but ones rooted in your reality.
You can click around the different roles/jobs to learn more about them, and then it gives you information about how it might overlap with your current role, a “day in the life” overview, and then things you might need to do to get into the role.
Screenshots above from Career Dreamer by Google.
First impressions from a product management perspective
When I put on my product hat, the first question I ask is: What’s the real problem this tool is trying to solve? At face value, Career Dreamer helps users “explore career possibilities with AI.” But that’s a pretty broad space. Who is this really built for - and what moment are they in when they come to it?
Here are a few hypotheses I came up with about what Career Dreamer might be aiming to solve:
Problem 1: “I don’t know what I want to do next.”
The user is uncertain about their next career move and is looking for inspiration.Problem 2: “I know what I like and don’t like, but I don’t know how that maps to roles.”
The user has experience, but struggles to connect their skills/interests to actual jobs.Problem 3: “I’m ready for a change, but I don’t know what’s realistic.”
The user wants to pivot but needs to see roles that are within reach - not just aspirational, but actionable.
If these are the problems the tool is solving for, it does a few things really well:
It uses real inputs from your background (past roles, tasks, skills, interests) instead of relying on personality types or vague labels.
It generates career paths that are connected to your lived experience, which increases relevance and trust.
It reduces the overwhelm of searching from scratch by giving you a starting point.
But it’s also missing some critical functionality depending on the problems it’s solving for:
🚧 What’s Missing:
If the user’s problem is lack of clarity or self-awareness, it needs more structured reflection.
It could ask questions about your working style, what motivates you, what you value in a workplace, or what environments you thrive in - not just what you’ve done.If the user’s problem is understanding which roles utilize which skills, it needs better skill tagging and grouping.
It would be powerful to group role suggestions by skills so users can understand which roles might be better suited for certain strengths or skillsets that a user has.If the user’s problem is not knowing what’s realistic, it needs a clear and personalized path/roadmap.
For each suggested role, it could break down:Key gaps between where you are and where you want to go - essentially a GPS for getting from Point A to Point B
Recommended learning paths - whether formal or informal education
Realistic timelines or entry points
If the problem is choice paralysis, it needs a way to compare and contrast roles.
Side-by-side views of job outlook, required experience, salary ranges, and alignment to the user’s current role would help users make more informed decisions.
Overall, what I appreciate about the tool is that Career Dreamer is not trying to be overly prescriptive - it’s a nudge for discovery, not a step-by-step plan. It helps the learner get a better sense of what’s out there. But if the goal is to help people actually move toward a fulfilling career, it’ll need to close the gap between inspiration and action.
Still, It’s a Step Forward
Even though there are some critical pieces missing to actually helping the user make the jump to a new job or path, it’s a much better jumping-off point than the assessments and quizzes of the past. For young professionals who’ve had enough experience to start gathering data points on what they do like or don’t like, this is a helpful way to continue learning about the different roles or career paths that could fit them based on their experiences and interests that they’ve developed so far.
If you’re in that “What now?” phase of your career, give it a try. You might find something that reaffirms your path or you might uncover a new one that excites you. Let me know in the comments - I’d love to hear what directions it surfaces for you (and if it sparks something for you!).
Merry