How would you rate your career satisfaction?
If you had to rate your career satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being low and 10 being excellent, would you be on the high end? Or the low end? Somewhere in the middle? How much do you love what you do for a living?
Or, are you not working and you just don’t know what to do next?
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor time-use surveys, most American’s spend more than 40 hours a week at work. And this tends to be true for most of my clients. For this very reason, it’s always been important to me that my clients apply for jobs that they are not only HIGHLY qualified for, but that will be a GOOD FIT for them!
Because it is so important to me to not create an “obituary-type” boring resume that will never get past all the gatekeepers (and waste your money), I developed the Qual-Fit Tool™ for two reasons:
- To help our clients find a quality fit job announcement where they would score high and land in the top 1-2% so they can land an interview.
- To quickly eliminate all those job announcements that aren’t a good fit. This saves time, money, and SO much frustration.
They can now spend their precious time and energy only on those job announcements that are a good fit!
I would rather craft your single-most important career document to land interviews and jobs!
Do you love your job? Or is it just a means to an end? Does it give you the career satisfaction that you deserve, given the time and energy that you invest in it?
Does your job pay your bills and provide a lifestyle you need?
I do hope that your job—or prospective job—will pay your bills and provide for your family. If your job pays well, you may not mind the hours that you spend at work. The financial return of your investment of time makes it all worthwhile. The impact your work has might be what gets you out of bed in the morning.
Or…maybe you happen to be in a job that doesn’t pay your bills. If that’s the case, what are you doing to change this? Are you increasing or improving your knowledge, skills, and expertise? Will you change your financial obligations? Will you find a higher paying job? Maybe you could negotiate a higher salary where you’re at!
If you’ve chosen a job solely for financial reasons, and you aren’t truly happy there, have you considered: what is it really costing you? Time? Family? Balance?
Does your job (or no job) affect your health? What about your self-esteem? Do your relationships suffer? If so, maybe it’s time to consider a new career with higher career satisfaction—and maybe more impact.
Are you surrounding yourself with people who have the expertise to help?
Is your job challenging you and improving your personal development?
It’s been my observation that being challenged in our jobs steadily promotes career growth. If you are consistently doing tasks that are simple for you, it’s easy to get complacent and just skate through your days. And don’t get me wrong, I think most of us have seasons when this is exactly what they need at work… but it’s not always a great long-term career strategy! Because typically, we need to learn and grow to be happy, and ultimately to achieve career satisfaction.
When you are challenged at work, typically, you engage in new tasks and responsibilities. You learn new things. And you might even get excited about the idea of taking on new tasks. Learning something new and working on something unfamiliar is often a good mental challenge. Then, upon successful execution, you’ll have a new skill for your professional arsenal which may also, potentially, be useful in a conversation about negotiating your future salary or pay raise.
If you don’t have opportunities to develop your knowledge, skills, and abilities in your current role, after a while, you may want to consider what other career opportunities might be available for you.
Does your job increase your happiness?
When we consider how much time we spend at work, it would be really nice if we also ENJOYED our jobs, wouldn’t it? We should be doing work that satisfies us on many levels, where we feel engaged, and ultimately happy to be doing the work and contributing to the success of the organization.
Money isn’t everything…
We work with a lot of people who aren’t necessarily applying for jobs for the money or raise, but for the happiness it would bring, the location, the work, and the impact they could make.
While this isn’t an all-inclusive list of questions, there are a number of factors that help determine happiness at work (which happens to go hand-in-hand with career satisfaction!):
- Do you believe in the overall mission of the company?
- Do you feel valued?
- Are you getting paid fairly for your efforts?
- Do you feel accomplished?
- Are you receiving regular positive affirmation?
- How much support do you receive?
- Do the people you serve express how well you do your job?
- Do you like your coworkers?
- Is there autonomy—are you able to make your own decisions about what you do in your job?
- Are you offered training and development opportunities? Do you take them?
- Are you accountable for your work?
- Does your work have a positive impact?
If you answered ‘no’ to more of those questions than you answered ‘yes’ to…maybe it’s time to start strategizing your career change.
Give a quick listen to what Marshall Goldsmith says on career satisfaction:
Check out this (roughly) 5-minute video by Marshall Goldsmith, asking the question “Do You Love What You Do?” … which I found very fitting for this week’s article.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNfnpvFn7UM
The Great Resignation continues… or is it the Great Reimagination?
Apparently, 58% of US consumer products executives recently surveyed by Deloitte predict that high levels of voluntary separations will continue throughout this year. Further, for an additional 15% of these executives, it will continue into 2023—or even beyond. Most of these executives believe that the main reason behind future staffing losses will be “external,” such as “The Great Resignation” and people reassessing or reimagining their priorities.
Is this you? Have you been reassessing your priorities, and looking for a change?
Do you love what you do and have great career satisfaction?
I’d love to hear from you either way! Let me know in the comments!
And, if you would like to set up a time for a career strategy session to discuss your next BEST move, click here.
For more than 25 years, I've been trusted by all levels of professionals to senior executives in the Federal Government to collaborate with them and strategize, coach, and write not only their single most important document—the resume—but all of their career marketing that propels them upward in the ranks of the Federal Government and private sector. And, I would love to meet you and help you with yours! Thank you for stopping by!
You can find out what's killing your chances of landing federal jobs here: Take the 1-minute quiz and get valuable insight to your situation.
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