Career goals and ambitions
The satisfaction of a happy and rewarding work life can come from a variety of factors. With this in mind, and an eye on your ambitions and goals, you can answer the important question: what do I want?
Money’s capacity to provide true job satisfaction is limited. Studies by management and motivation theorists have found that salary, as with many other factors such as work conditions and your relationships with managers can only serve to prevent dissatisfaction.
The important point here is that not being dissatisfied is not the same as achieving the satisfaction of a happy and rewarding work life. This will not be news to you if you’ve ever felt a vague, yet disconcertingly sustained apathy towards your work.
True job satisfaction may come from factors including:
- Achievement
- Recognition
- The nature of the work
- Responsibility
- Advancement
- Problems or challenges?
Think about the issues affecting your work life, or in your last job. Are you worried and dissatisfied with the situation and conditions? Or are you in fact seeking to achieve a heightened satisfaction, by developing those areas of your job that can motivate and satisfy you?
Our 2008 survey of accounting & finance professionals and employers showed that the main factors behind leaving an organisation are more weighted towards those factors cause dissatisfaction (overworked 5%, lack of flexible working 10%, poor salary 11%, general dissatisfaction 11%) over those that have been shown to provide true satisfaction (lack of opportunity for promotion 20% and highest, organisational culture 4%).
Your employer should be willing and able to satisfy your more basic requirements. With these in place you can focus your career decisions on achieving the things that you really want, both now and in the future.
Once you have explored these issues in some depth, you will be well placed to think about what degree of satisfaction you can achieve in your current organisation, or whether it’s time to move onwards and upwards in search of something more.
If you could do away with your problems at work, how well could your employer stack up for the 5 factors bullet pointed above?
What matters to you today? What will matter tomorrow?
What you want from your current and next job will depend on the stage of your life and career, and your goals for the future.
Major factors in the early stages of your career might include funded and specific training, varied experiences, coaching or working with inspirational managers.
Job security, status, responsibility and power may be lower down on the list at an early stage, but these things have been shown to become more important motivators as people move through their career.
Think about where you are today, and where you want to be tomorrow – in your career and more generally. What factors are important in making this happen? Can your current role and organisation give you what you want?
It is worth having an idea of your ultimate goal or vision. Even if you aren’t certain enough in this goal to pursue it with an uncompromising vigour and ‘make it happen’, knowing what you are aiming towards gives you direction, a basis for decision making, and allows you to at least ‘let it happen’.
Making the connection: culture and values
The working environment and culture in an organisation will influence many of the five factors at the top of the page. It is important to make the right connection between your personality and values and the culture of the organisation for which you work.
While it can be difficult to identify these values, some companies will formalise their values and publish them on their website or within their corporate mission statement.
Interviews are a good opportunity to find out more about how achievement is recognised and rewarded, how this translates into career progression, and to look out for visible evidence of a culture that connects with your own values and personality.