The Difference Between a Bad Job and The Wrong Job

I was interviewed for a New York Times column by Phyllis Korkki on The True Calling That Wasn't, which appeared last Sunday.  In course of the conversation, I started thinking about what I learned from Richard Hackman (one of my mentors) about what kinds of jobs motivate people and about theory and research on identity in organizations.   In doing so, I realized that while much of what I write about focuses on bad versus good bosses, jobs, and organizations, that I ought to also be emphasizing that there are many perfectly good jobs out there held be people who are, nonetheless, quite unhappy because the kind of work they do, the mission of their organization, and a host of other factors simply do not mesh well who they are and what they would want to be. 

Of course, one of the key dimensions here is whether a person is an extrovert or an introvert.  I had a little glimpse of this with my own family a few weeks back when we were on vacation in Mexico, and my daughter and wife started talking about what job they would most like at the resort.  My daughter loved the idea of being the bartender because there would so many people to talk to; my wife picked being one of the landscapers because the idea of working in silence and sustaining beautiful plants and grounds appealed to her sense of order and aesthetics.  In her case, I should add one of the main reasons that she loves her job is that helping girls grow into confident young woman with great skills and character counts so strongly in her value system, that doing all the extroverted things she does as CEO of the Girl Scouts of Northern California trumps her inner introvert.

But some of us have jobs that don't fit who we are and we would be much happier doing another kind of work.  As the article says, in talking to Phyllis, I thought of three signs that someone is in the wrong job. These are:

1. "People whose careers aren’t the right fit often feel like impostors, even if they are very skilled at their jobs."

2. "Another symptom is constant annoyance with the demands being made of them, even though these are reasonable for the business they’re in."

3. "An additional warning sign is a feeling that their current work doesn’t rank very high in their value system."

This little list just begins to scratch the surface.  As we are -- I hope -- beginning to move to a time when many people who have decent jobs that don't fit their identity can find a better calling.

I wonder: What are other signs that a competent person is in the wrong job?  And, when they are looking for a new job, what are signs it will be better for them?

Comments

[Steve Heath]

Great post! The part about feeling like an impostor really resonated with me. I work in a technical field but am not technical. I keep waiting to get thrown out for being incompetent.

Thank you for putting into words what I have not been able to get across to others...I have a good job but it is just the wrong job for me.

[Me]

I worked in financial IT for ten years. I was good at it, became a consultant and earned a lot of money. And felt like a total impostor. It annoyed me and stressed me, and I had a hard time motivating myself towards the end. So that's 1, 2 and 3.

Today, I'm in life science informatics, which I still love after nearly a decade. I'm using many of the tools I was using before (Perl/Java/C++, Windows, databases, Excel and so on) but for some reason, I find working for biotech, pharma and medical device companies way more interesting. The money is better, I feel like I fit in, and I'm a happier person.

[Ellie]

This is a really knotty one. When are you in the wrong job and when have you merely lost your way and your focus?

I am currently a scientific researcher, it can be a very introverted job, and I am most definitely an extrovert. I'd like to be a designer, but my very academic background makes transferring to such an artistic field very difficult and, even if that is not the case, the financial barriers to retraining may be too high. I am also currently just one career ladder step away from setting up my own group - a job that I am just dying to have a go at so I can put into practice everything I have learned from reading this blog. I am much more interested in the mechanics of running a group (and even the bread and butter of applying for grants) than I am in the practical side of running my own experiments.

So I am wondering how much of my feeling that I am in the wrong job is actually down to my own attitude? Bob's next post on idleness is also relevant here because I have been routinely underemployed and constant periods of inaction have made me very unhappy in my work. I am trying to increase my workload in order to find out how much of the problem is idleness and how much of it is bad fit, but sometimes it is hard to know.

Should I take the very high-risk option of trying to retrain for a job that I hope will be a better fit, but may turn out to be no better, or should I stick with the bird in the hand, which I am struggling to motivate myself to do well, but which hold the promise of a massive improvement if I can only stick it out (and find the motivation to do it well) another 2 or 3 years?

A knotty problem indeed...

[Greg]

Bad Job\Wrong Job:Bad Boss\Wrong Boss.

One job I had; my coworker said our boss was the best guy he ever worked for. I thought he was a candidate for Bob Sutton book cover.

The reality was the wrong boss for me (probably the most significant factor in a wrong job), the wrong employee for the job, not a good fit for the culture.

The job and the company was not "bad," just a bad fit.

[Costrike]

This is topic which I have given a lot of thought to recently as it hits close to home.
I look at this issue in terms of three criteria: Individualism (pursuit of personal goals) vs. Collectivism (priority of group goals over individual goals), Universalism (applies to all persons and/or all things for all times and in all situations) vs. Particularism (judgment can be found only as one decides particular cases) & Inner Directed (The environment is there to be utilized and conquered) vs. Outer Directed (The environment needs to be protected and lived within). Preferences vary between companies, groups and regions, but in general the tendency in the U.S. is towards the former in each of these pairings. Those who tend towards the latter option in any of these pairings are likely to experience difficulty in fully fitting in. Those who are further misaligned, be it through extreme differing values on one of these spectra, or by being fairly far apart on all of them, are likely to find themselves swimming upstream or worse yet, eventually as fish out of water. I believe that gaining an understanding of whether or not your values are aligned with a potential employer’s culture can help you estimate your probability of success and compatibility with the firm.
-Chris Oestereich

[Alan Carniol]

This is a great posting. When I look at your list, it focuses on three main concepts -
1)authenticity & personality
2)engagement & work motivations
3)culture & values

I'd add to the list one more big one
4)strengths & capacity to deliver results

[Anonymous]

It's the wrong job if you have a value system that is different from your boss.

My coworker and I approach our work very differently. Under previous management, I was doing everything "right", and my coworker was doing everything wrong. Management changed, and now I'm wrong and my coworker's approach is right.

Neither of us changed how we work, and the work itself didn't change either. Just the boss. And that made all the difference.

For me, it certainly went from being the right job, to the wrong job.