It’s that feeling that creeps up on you. The money is right, your manager is lovely, barracks for the same footy team as you, location good. It all should be peachy. But something is niggling at you that makes you consistently… uncomfortable… on the regular at work. It might be the priorities of the business, perhaps learning and development is hugely important to you and it’s not even on your radar in this role, employee recognition and promotion is done by tenure rather than achievements and that doesn’t sit well, the carbon footprint is huge and not of concern to anyone and that really bothers you. Whatever it is, and ‘it’ is different to everyone, that little niggle is telling you that there is a misalignment between you and role/business, and when this happens success is very hard to come by. Frustration builds, motivation wanes, and generally it’s not a good situation for anyone.
So how do you find the job that fits your values, means something to you, and is it possible or realistic to hold out for a job like this when the market is super competitive? Matching potential employee’s values with the role and company is nowhere near the top of the priority list for most recruiters, so it’s really up to you to figure this whole thing out.
The thing is, no one is going to understand you and what you need, like, well, you. The key to feeling engaged at work is aligning your own personal values with those of your organisation, your team, and your direct manager- when you are all working towards something you believe in, that’s where the magic happens. If you select roles that fulfill your basic needs, motives and values as an individual, you will of course be more invested in your work. When you’re invested you work harder, are more engaged and the outcome is invariably better. Productivity rises, staff turnover decreases, everyone is happy as larry.
To jump in the driver’s seat to take control of your happiness, and figure out how to find this elusive values match, you need to do a spot of self-reflection, planning and strategic thinking.
Know Thyself
No one will ever know what matters to you, and if you don’t spend the time to figure it out for yourself, you might spend an awful lot of time jumping from job to job with a constant feeling of dissatisfaction, impacting your career trajectory and your chances of getting a job that will really mean something to you. Set aside a bit of quiet time to do a spot of self-reflection. Don’t worry, it’s not too complicated.
A good place to start is with a list of common values, like the below (if none of these resonate you can google ‘list of values’ or ‘values clarification exercise’). Set a time for 3 minutes. Read through the list and circle each one your gut says fits you (it doesn’t have to be purely career-oriented, remember these can be things that matter to you in your personal life as well).
| Accountability Accuracy Achievement Adventurousness Altruism Ambition Assertiveness Balance Being the best Belonging Boldness Calmness Carefulness Challenge Cheerfulness Clear-mindedness Commitment Community Compassion Competitiveness Consistency Contentment Continuous Improvement Contribution Control Cooperation Correctness Courtesy Creativity Curiosity Decisiveness Democraticness Dependability Determination Devoutness Diligence Discipline Discretion Diversity Dynamism Economy Effectiveness Efficiency Elegance Empathy Enjoyment Enthusiasm Equality | Excellence
Excitement Expertise Exploration Expressiveness Fairness Faith Family-orientedness Fidelity Fitness Fluency Focus Freedom Fun Generosity Goodness Grace Growth Happiness Hard Work Health Helping Society Holiness Honesty Honor Humility Independence Ingenuity Inner Harmony Inquisitiveness Insightfulness Intelligence Intellectual Status Intuition Joy Justice Leadership Legacy Love Loyalty Making a difference Mastery Merit Obedience Openness Order Originality Patriotism | Perfection
Piety Positivity Practicality Preparedness Professionalism Prudence Quality-orientation Reliability Resourcefulness Restraint Results-oriented Rigor Security Self-actualization Self-control Selflessness Self-reliance Sensitivity Serenity Service Shrewdness Simplicity Soundness Speed Spontaneity Stability Strategic Strength Structure Success Support Teamwork Temperance Thankfulness Thoroughness Thoughtfulness Timeliness Tolerance Traditionalism Trustworthiness Truth-seeking Understanding Uniqueness Unity Usefulness Vision Vitality |
When the time is up, copy the ones you have circled into a new shortlist.
Prioritise your top values on your shortlist. You may have 2 values that seem equally important- in this case, ask yourself ‘if I could satisfy just one of these, which would it be?’ and visualise a situation in which you would need to make that choice. Keep working through the list, comparing each value with others, until your list is in the order from most important to least.
Sense check your values. Do they make you feel good about yourself? Are you proud of your top 3? Would you be comfortable to tell your values to those around you?
Using This Knowledge
Have your shortlist in front of you for every conversation with a recruiter, every interview and even when just reading through job advertisements. A good recruiter will recognise the importance of a values fit and can use the work you’ve done to help you understand how you will fit with the jobs they have available.
Draft some questions to ask in the interview process to help uncover how the manager/role/organisation fits with your values. For example, if your number one value is making a difference, some questions for your interviewer (be it your potential manager, or the HR representative) that might be useful could be:
What difference do you feel you’ve made personally within the organisation? How do you feel about this?
Do you feel like you make an impact personally and as an organisation?
Don’t be afraid to probe. Make them think. If they draw a blank and get a vague panicky look in their eyes, or worse, make you feel like you’re wasting their time with questions like this, then you can consider that a red flag.
Eventually, you may start to get a sense of some words and phrases used by individuals who seem to be marching to the beat of the same drum. It may be in the wording of the ad, the way the recruiter talks about the company, and of course the way your hiring manager describes the company and the attributes they are looking for in someone.
Chances are you will have to be patient, as, like finding a life partner, that right chemistry isn’t going to come up too regularly. You may be in a role that doesn’t match your values while you figure all this out. And that’s ok, now you’ve done the work you can recognise why you’re feeling the way you do, take a step back and not get too caught up in the frustration. You’re doing the work to correct the situation, and if you use what you’ve learnt about yourself into your career plans, then the only way is up.