Career Peace

A recent study showed that nearly 80% of Americans hate their jobs. I’ve heard a lot of possible reasons for the number being so high. Maybe it’s parents pushed them into a career they weren’t suited for. Or perhaps they picked a career field only because the money was good. But whatever the reason, I suspect you can trace nearly everyone’s job dissatisfaction back to this one single factor…
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A few days ago, I talked about the notion of finding a job in someplace other than your hometown. It’s not easy developing a network of contacts in a place you’ve never lived, and possibly only visited a few times. Yet, it can be done. If you do enough of the right things, you can develop a network of personal contacts in another city that can help you with your job search there.

Those right things involve researching the companies that can make the best use of your skills. Then identifying people that work in those jobs, making contact with them, and offering to take them to lunch in exchange for an “informational interview.”

Do enough of these and you’ll soon develop a core group of people willing to help you find jobs in their companies - jobs that you’ll have the inside track to get before anybody else even knows about them.

Personal Networking Pays Off, But It Takes Some Work

How hard will you have to work in order for this technique to pay off for you? I wish I could answer that one. I can’t. The answer is different for everybody. But I can tell you that it pays off in spades. Take Henry, for example.

Henry lived in Atlanta, and wanted to move to Phoenix, AZ. Phoenix is significantly smaller than Atlanta, but Henry desperately wanted to move there, so he started developing a long distance network of new acquaintances that could help him.

Through his research, Henry uncovered 108 places that sounded interesting enough to work for. Henry made a total of 127 phone calls to people who worked in Phoenix at those 108 companies. After all those calls, he narrowed down his list from 108 possible employers to 46.

Get This Many Job Offers, And All You Have To Do Is Cherry-Pick

He travelled to Phoenix to meet with some of the people he had called. When he returned home, he had narrowed the list down to 27 possible opportunities. Out of those 27, he got 12 job offers. 12 offers!

From there it was easy. Henry just picked the one that sounded most interesting with the people who seemed the most pleasant to work with. As far as I know he’s still there, and probably as happy as he’s ever been.

Now, will you have to do as much work to find a job in a new city as Henry did? Maybe. Maybe not. But I’ll tell you what - when you’re facing the daunting task of moving to entirely new surroundings, it sure is nice to have a huge network of contacts who know you, and know how to get ahold of you if they want to hire you.

Conducting a job search in a far-away town is hard. But not impossible. What Henry did isn’t that hard. But he didn’t do it with 5 resumes and 2 phone calls. It will take some work. But if you’re willing to put in the effort, a job relocation like this can work for you, too.

If you’re not happy in your current career, a new study at the University of Chicago could help explain why. The University’s National Opinion Research Center recently concluded that the happiest workers in the US are the ones who spend their days improving other peoples’ lives.

“We found that occupations that involved a high degree of prestige, particularly those involving caring for others…were the highest in job satisfaction,” Smith said in a telephone interview. Clergy ranked the highest, with 87.2 percent saying they were “very satisfied” in their careers.

Firefighters (80.1 percent) and physical therapists (78.1 percent) were close runners-up. Rounding out the top 10 were education administrators, painters and sculptors, teachers, authors, psychologists, special education instructors, and operating engineers.

These findings come as no real surprise. Most people define themselves by their career choice. To coin a line from the hit movie, Batman Begins, “It’s not who I am, but what I do that defines me.” So, I guess if you’re Batman, your job satisfaction is pretty high.

However, the study turned up one interesting fact that you might not expect. Medical doctors did not rate themselves very highly on the job satisfaction scale at all.

You might find this odd. Doctors certainly improve other people’s lives. Based on that you’d think their job satisfaction level would be higher.

What is it about being the medical profession that kills happiness?

The same study answers that one for you…

“Being a physician requires a lot more stress, a lot more danger of being sued, and this is something that lowers job satisfaction”

There’s your answer: fear of being sued creates a lot of job stress. It’s kind of hard to have a peaceful worklife if you’re constantly worried about a disgruntled customer hauling you into court to try to take everything you’ve worked for.

It would be like showing up to work every morning wearing a big bullseye on your chest - with a dollar sign in the middle.

So if you’re considering a career change to the medical profession, consider this fact of the job context. I’m not saying don’t become a doctor if you really feel called to be one. Just take this issue into consideration as you make your decision to become one.