Workers haven't given up on getting their 'dream job' — but what they're looking for has changed

Expectations don't always match reality when it comes to work.

Jose Luis Pelaez Inc/Getty Images

• Early-career workers say work isn't central to their identities. Some dislike the term "dream job."
• But many wish their work were more meaningful and had a bigger positive influence.
• Teens are biased toward jobs that will be challenging when they enter the workforce.

The concept of a career has changed radically in the past few years.

The pandemic prompted many knowledge workers to rethink their relationship with, and their allegiance to, their jobs. Generation Z workers, in particular — some of whom started their careers remotely — say work is less central to their identities than it appeared to be for previous generations.

But the idea that you should be striving toward your "dream job," one in which you're simultaneously fulfilling your passion and saving the world, is still present. While younger generations are starting to think differently, people continue to beat themselves up over not having landed their dream job soon enough.

Employers, educators, and career coaches would do well to help early-career professionals both align their expectations with labor-market realities and expand their definition of what constitutes meaningful and worthwhile work.

Dreaming about work

The very term "dream job" is divisive.

Some early-career professionals have been vocal about why they distinguish their identity, passion, and ambition from their day jobs, in contrast to previous generations of workers.

"I don't dream of labor," an allusion to the term "dream job," is a common refrain on TikTok.

On LinkedIn, Adam Karpiak, a recruiter, wrote: "We all need to work to survive, but that doesn't mean we should dream about work."

The post generated upward of 300 comments within 24 hours, some from those who agreed that fantasizing about work meant buying into capitalist mythology.

"When I think about dream job, I am mostly thinking about the money that it will pay to support my dream life," a chartered financial analyst wrote.

Other commenters disagreed.

"The soul crushing nature of spending a majority of your waking hours in pursuit of the resources you need to take care of your family is somewhat softened when you're working somewhere that aligns with what you're passionate about," a public-relations professional wrote.

The reality of finding a job

Ask teenagers about their career expectations, and you'll find that many aim for jobs that are traditionally considered prestigious, while eschewing roles that can appear less glamorous.

A report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found that adolescents around the world underestimated how challenging it would be to pursue careers in fields such as medicine and law. Meanwhile, a 2021 paper published in the Journal of Career Assessment found that less than 1% of roughly 3,400 US adolescents surveyed between 2004 and 2011 said they aspired to jobs such as bank clerk, receptionist, or librarian.

These kinds of jobs, which generally require people to work with numbers, stay organized, and follow procedures, will account for more than 20% of all job openings in the US between 2014 and 2024, found an analysis of Labor Department data the researchers ran. 

The researchers didn't ask students why they aspired to certain jobs over others. But there's some evidence that people see meaningful work as a narrow category.

High standards for meaningful work

In 2019, Rebecca Fraser-Thill, a career coach and the former director of faculty engagement in the Center for Purposeful Work at Bates College, told Insider that if professionals expanded their definition of meaningful work to include things like providing for their families and making colleagues smile, the workforce would be more satisfied overall. People wouldn't be constantly peering over their shoulder to see who was doing more noble work than they were.

A number of people I interviewed while writing "Don't Call It Quits" told me they wished they could be doing work that had a more positive influence on the world. One spent years feeling guilty about helping tech CEOs get media attention and fantasized about working for a social enterprise. Eventually, this person stopped trying to change jobs and started feeling like it was enough to provide for her family and do work she's good at. 

As for wondering whether her work is meaningful enough, she said: "How much better is my life going to be if I wrestle with these questions?"

Read the original article on Business Insider

from Business Insider https://ift.tt/2dtBJvU