Job searches suck, no matter how you look at them. For the most part, you’re parading yourself around, hoping someone will be interested in what you offer. Then you hope they can pay you enough to pay your bills, never mind paying you what you’re worth.
You desperately take whatever is offered and get excited that you actually have a job. Then some time goes by and you’re miserable. That misery is usually a result of a bad cultural fit. Being desperate for the money, you didn’t even consider the culture.
It’s not easy to prioritize culture when you’ve been programmed to show that you’re the right widget for their machine. None of the job search information out there puts “cultural fit” on the list of things to ask about. It only addresses questions around “what do you need the person in this position to do” and “am I the right person who can do those things.”
Find Your Path
I hear from so many people who can’t find decent jobs or are miserable in their jobs. For the most part, none of these people know what they’re looking for in life or in a job. How can you know if you’re on the right path if you don’t know what that path looks like for you?
When I started my career, I thought I knew my path (what the next twenty years would look like): rising to partner as fast as I could at one of the big public accounting firms and living happily ever after in my beautiful suburban house with my happy family.
Funny how life never works out the way you plan, especially when that plan had nothing to do with what I wanted. The thing is, I had no idea what I wanted. My plan was completely designed around what I thought I was supposed to do, what my parents would be proud of, what would look good to others.
Six years into my journey, I started to question the whole thing. I finally realized that I had no idea what I wanted, but I knew it wasn’t what I had created for myself. I ended up taking two years off to figure that out.
Some may say that this leap from my career track was a form of failure or a crazy, irresponsible choice. At the time, it seemed like the only choice for me. I didn’t know it at the time, but it ended up being the beginning of a journey to discover the real me, what made my heart sing and how to assemble all that I learned about myself.
It was the first time that I followed my intuition with curiosity instead of fear. I looked forward to the next step each step of the way.
I took any job, even very low-paying jobs, during this time if they were remotely related to something that made my heart sing. My intuition gave me the vague message that being outdoors, somewhere out west and doing something with horses was what I needed to do. So I did many different things that fell in those parameters. Each step/job that I took taught me a little more about what I did and didn’t like. I kept putting the pieces together, not knowing where they would lead me.
After two years, I realized that I wanted my own place in the woods with horses. I didn’t want to live in big cities anymore. I also realized that I didn’t hate what I did in my corporate job. I actually enjoyed it. I realized that how I was doing the job – and living my life – is what didn’t work for me.
I realized that the culture of the place where I worked had a huge impact on my happiness.
Culture Matters
Now, over twenty years later, I’ve done basically the same job in a variety of businesses. The culture of each company has always had a huge impact on my drive, motivation, and happiness.
Fortunately, smart companies understand the importance of culture on the success of their businesses. Companies like Zappos go to great lengths to ensure that their new recruits will be a good cultural fit. A multitude of studies has proven that companies that proactively manage their culture are more profitable. Happy employees make happy customers who want to buy more.
Given the importance of culture to personal happiness for the job seeker and profitability for companies, I’m surprised that there’s no easy way to search for companies based on their culture (hint hint LinkedIn, Monster and Indeed).
Given the cost of turnover to an organization, why not be more transparent about the true culture of an organization?
In what type of culture would you thrive? Here are some examples:
- Traditional hierarchy
- Self-managed teams
- Flat organizations
- Pay for performance
- Structured pay grades where everyone gets the same raises
- Typical 8 to 5 day with little pressure
- Flexible work schedules
- 24/7 mentality (always on and available)
- Only cares about your output at any cost
- Values you as a person and respects that you have a life outside the office
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How Job Hopping Can Help You
Today, the average time people stay in a job is about four years and falling. For senior executives, it’s more like one or two years.
I remember the days when this was considered “job hopping” and frowned upon by those hiring. It used to be a sign of instability. My, how things have changed.
Today, moving from job to job is seen as a way to keep your skills fresh, learn new things and solve new problems. Most hiring managers now look for job hoppers who have delivered value to a variety of organizations. Staying at the same place too long is an opportunity to stagnate.
Each job is a learning experience. Not only are you learning more about yourself (what you’re great at, how you can best help, what makes you happy), you’re also learning new things in new environments. When you apply what you’ve learned each step of the way, you can add more value, increasing your value to the market and, correspondingly, what you’re paid.
Money Matters
Speaking of money, from my almost thirty years of experience in the work world, do NOT follow the money. It will almost always lead you away from your happy place.
Making a lot more money at a company with a “burn and churn” culture is meaningless. While you may have more money, you have less time to enjoy it. You have no time for meaningful experiences (in my view, the most fulfilling way to spend money). You end up spending your money on things and addictions in an effort to find happiness again. And we all know that these things can never bring you happiness.
I’m certainly not saying that you have to choose between money and happiness. You can have both. The questions to ask yourself are: How much money do you need? and Will any job make you truly happy?
Mission and Values Matter
The ideal companies for you will share your mission and values. Have you taken the time to get clear about what your mission in life is and what your core values are?
If your mission in life is to help others out of poverty, you’ll never be happy at a company where everything revolves around increasing profits. If you constantly find yourself helping others appreciate artistic beauty, a design or architectural firm might be a good fit while you avoid companies that discourage creativity.
Without knowing your core values, you’re a ship adrift at sea. Knowing your core values makes all of your decision-making in life much easier. Your values are your guiding light.
If family is important to you, a “burn and churn” culture where they churn through people by burning them out will never be a good fit. If health is one of your core values, working at McDonald’s couldn’t possibly make you happy. If you thrive on humor, a place like Southwest might be worth looking into.
Working long hours at a job that doesn’t share your mission and values is a completely different experience from working long hours at a place with people who inspire you. Culture, mission and values matter.
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Simple Steps
The next time you find yourself looking for a new opportunity, which happens often these days, instead of blindly posting your resume to every other job site and hoping for the best (the truly passive method), try incorporating a little mindfulness in your job search. The more aware you are of who you are and what makes your heart sing, the better your chances to find an awesome job.
Before going down the old job search path, try the following process:
- Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed.
- Pull out your journal or notebook and a writing instrument that you love. Writing by hand is infinitely more helpful and intuitive than using any electronic device.
- Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to focus and center yourself.
- Write about all the jobs you’ve had (volunteer or paid) and what you loved and didn’t like about each of them. Are there any common themes? What motivated you? What made you want to beat your head against the wall in frustration? What were you amazing at? What about all these experiences would you want to repeat? What would you want to avoid?
- Imagine your perfect average day. See, hear, smell and experience it as vividly as possible in your imagination. Write as much detail as possible about the following:
- a. Where do you live?
- b. Describe your home and each room in infinite detail. How does it make you feel?
- c. Describe the environment outside of your home. What can you see out the windows? What’s in your neighborhood?
- d. Who do you spend your time with? What do you do together? What do you talk about? How do you make each other feel?
- e. What do you do for work? Describe the company and how it feels. Describe your boss and your coworkers. How do you feel about the work you do? How much money do you make? How do you feel appreciated?
- f. How do you spend your time outside of work? What’s most important to you?
- With all this in mind, consider what your mission is. Given what you’re doing and thinking about all day in your perfect average day, why are you here? What is your gift to the world? It doesn’t have to be anything big and impressive. You may have an amazing smile or sense of humor that lights people up.
- Identify your top three values. Life gets a whole lot easier when you know what your top values are. Once you’re rock-solid in what your values are, it’s easy to base all of your decisions on them. Your top values are the three most important things in the world to you. Without these things, you aren’t you. I shouldn’t call them “things” because that’s exactly what they’re not. They’re concepts, ideas, ways of being in the world. If you think of a thing or person as being the most important, ask yourself what that thing or person brings you in terms of feelings. Your top values won’t change much throughout your life because they’re part of who you are. Values are concepts like happiness, joy, freedom, integrity, service. Google “list of values” to get some ideas.
- How does your ideal job support your mission and values? Does your description of your ideal job need to be reworked? Was your initial ideal job something that someone else would want for you or something you feel you should do? Or is it in alignment with who you are? You will never be happy doing something that makes someone else happy.
- Keep refining your detailed description of your ideal job until it feels completely right for you. See it. Feel it.
- At least once a week, write out that detailed description of your ideal job in your journal or notebook. Make it a little different each time, focusing on a different aspect. You don’t want this to be a rote exercise. The purpose is to keep the vision and the feelings It also makes the job a little more real for you each time. In doing this, you’re sending out the energy to attract that ideal job to you. Don’t expect it to arrive in any particular way. The Universe has a habit of surprising you in the most unlikely ways.
- Take action toward finding your ideal job.
- a. Research companies that have the type of culture you’re looking for. See if you have any connections to anyone at the company by searching your social media connections. Look for issues these companies are facing and get creative with ways you can uniquely add value in solving these problems. Send your ideas to someone at the company with no expectations. Do not ask for an interview.
- b. Act on ways you can differentiate yourself from the other 200 applicants. Set up a website that solves problems for a demographic similar to the one the hiring company targets for customers.
- c. Actively market your niche in your space. For example, I’m a Chief Financial Officer (CFO). There are hundreds of CFO’s in my region, but we all have something different to offer. One of my specialties is strategically helping smaller companies create the infrastructure and systems to sustainably manage hockey-stick growth and potentially sell their companies. Other CFO’s focus on working with particular issues in large companies or in particular industries. Figure out what it is that lights your fire and sets you apart. Highlight that in your resume and in interviews.
- d. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. That reeks of desperation. If something doesn’t feel like a good fit, move on. Taking a crappy job may psychologically prevent you from jumping to a much better job.
- e. Get out and meet new people. Yes, you could call this networking, but that word carries too many negative connotations. What kind of events do the people you want to work with attend? Go to those events. Where do those people hang out after work or on the weekends? Show up there. Use the information that you found from researching companies to meet up with some of the people at those companies. They don’t have to be the hiring managers or even in the same department where you would want to work. Simply getting a connection or two can be incredibly valuable. Don’t forget to be creative in finding ways to help these people (on the job or off).
Finding your next great opportunity is an ongoing process. One group I’m a member of says that jobs are what fill the space between job searches. Searches don’t have to be painful. If I, an extreme introvert, can learn how to make meeting people and networking enjoyable, you can learn to love the search.
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If you have other ideas to help readers on their job search journey, please leave them in the comments below.
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