Most people spend more waking hours working than doing any other activity so why not be happy while you’re doing it. As the job market begins to pick up, it’s a great time to make a move and one factor that could influence this move is your happiness in your current role. As a recruiter, my first question is along these lines, are you unhappy with in your current position or what would make you happy in a new position? Is it a boss who is more available? More money? A more flexible schedule? Do you want more responsibilities?
I came across an article, “The happiest jobs in America” which set out to determine what positions people found the greatest overall enjoyment in their position. A website, CareerBliss.com, did a survey and broke overall happiness into these 10 categories
· Relationship with boss
· Relationship with co-workers
· Growth potential and opportunities
· Company culture
· Daily tasks
· How much control over daily tasks
· Compensation
· Work environment
· Company reputation
· Job resources
In thinking about a career change, position change or just overall looking for a new company, look at each of these areas and determine which are most important and which areas you might be willing to compromise. This will help you and your recruiter know exactly what will make your next position better than your current one. I would suggest you actually sit down with a piece of paper and rate of a scale of 1-5 your thoughts on each of these categories. If your current company has horrible culture and your co-workers are awful but you love the responsibilities, ask yourself if you’re willing to leave your job for a better culture. This will help you tremendously. For instance, if you go into an interview and you know you want better culture, ask about it during the interview. Also, when you’re in the lobby, pay attention to how people treat each other and when you walk past desks, see if people are interacting or just look miserable. This isn’t a 100% way to determine culture but will give you a general idea.
When I was reading the article I was shocked to find out who the happiest employees were in America, Software Quality Assurance Engineer. Yup, the folks who do software testing. This is great, an IT career is the happiest job in America. If you’re doing QA in Indianapolis and aren’t happy, please reach out. But really, there are dozens of industries and tons of jobs in the United States and the happiest employees just happen to be in IT. This should everyone working in an IT department hope that there are companies who are hitting the mark in these 10 categories. My challenge to you is to decide if you’re happy with your current role and if not, decide what you would be happier doing or what type of company would you be happy working for, then give me a ring and let me help you find this new position.
Credit:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2012/03/23/the-happiest-jobs-in-america/