In much the same way that we look to create a personal life where we feel happy, satisfied and fulfilled, the same principle applies to our work lives. When we invest so much of our time and ourselves into our work, achieving a sense of satisfaction is essential—but what exactly is it that fosters genuine career satisfaction?
Many believe that choosing a career that upholds our individual work values (or career values) is the key to creating a happy and fulfilling work life.
Here we discuss the role of work values and how you can use them to drive your employment choices and build a career that delivers real satisfaction.
Work values: the key to career satisfaction
Work values aren’t about what we want to achieve in our careers. Instead, work values relate to how we want to behave and act each day while we’re at work.
In the same way that everyone has different work values, so do employers. Each workplace and role offers a unique combination of values that might be highly appealing to some, but not in the least bit appealing to others. For this reason, it makes sense that employees who manage to find a job and an employer that meets their values expectations are probably going to feel a greater sense of job satisfaction. It’s more likely they’ll want to invest more energy and enthusiasm into their work and feel more motivated to perform at their best.
While it’s still important to take factors such as your career goals, personality, attitudes, and interests into account during the job search process, using your work values to guide your career direction is a smart strategy that could result in an overall more satisfying work life.
Whether you’re applying for a dealership role or a role in an entirely different industry, the same principle applies—if you know what makes you happy, you’ll be better equipped to manage whatever a job throws at you. Even if career fulfilment isn’t your end goal, choosing employment which provides a good values-fit will undoubtedly make for a more pleasant daily work life and make it much easier to show up each day.
How to identify your work values
Finding a job that matches your values starts off by identifying exactly what those values are. A simple approach is to create a list of work values, before placing them in order from most important to least important.
If you’re unsure of where to start, here are some examples of work values you might want to use:
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In addition to assigning a level of importance to each of your chosen values, you can also further categorise these into the values you view as non-negotiable (values a job must offer for you to consider it) and negotiable (values you might be willing to waver on if the position meets enough of your other values criteria).
It’s important to be honest with yourself when working through the process. Resist the temptation to place higher importance on values which might be seen as important to others and focus solely on the things that you value as an individual. Once finished, you should have a shortlist of the most important values a job needs to offer if it’s going to provide you with a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment.
Matching your work values to job opportunities
It’s likely that many of the values you’ve identified as important relate more to the working environment rather than the job itself; so, when selecting which jobs to apply for, remember to look beyond the job title alone.
You should be able to pick up plenty of clues from the job advertisement. While employers don’t always do a good job of providing a realistic picture of the workplace and what the role entails, they also want to find a candidate with a good values match. They know what they have to offer, and they tend to be straight-up about this from the get-go to avoid wasting time and money on unsuccessful recruitment activity.
When you do find a role that looks like it offers a good values-fit, don’t be afraid to mention one or two of your higher-order work values in your application cover letter. This will give the employer a clearer idea of what’s going to make you feel satisfied, and they’ll be able to make a better assessment of whether what they have to offer will deliver on that.
Teamrecruit is Australia’s most established recruitment agency specialising in truck, earthmoving and agricultural machinery dealerships in Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. Find out more about Teamrecruit and how we support employers and candidates in the dealership industry.
