The Marketplace Magazine January/February 2014

What’s the right job for you? Maybe you’re just starting your career. Maybe you’re in a job but feel unfulfilled. Don’t worry. The cement hasn’t hardened. Young people entering the work force today can expect to change careers half a dozen times during their lifetime. Sadly, some studies show that 60 to 80 percent of workers feel mismatched to their jobs. For Christians, that can be a spiritual issue. “Choosing the job you long to do may be the most far-reaching commitment to Christ you can make,” writes David Frahm in The Great Niche Hunt: Finding the Work that’s Right for You. He believes that natural interests, abilities and even limitations are part of God’s plan. That’s why it’s important to uncover “Who am I?” and to ask, “What do I really want to give my world through my work?” He suggests: (1) inventories to help identify how you process information, solve problems and influence others; (2) self-tests to help find suitable job environments; and (3) functional resumes to help articulate marketable skills to employers who can use them. That doesn’t mean you should bail out of an entry-level job. The recent recruiting season has seen financial It may be helpful — if you learn from it. firms trying to win over student prospects by putWriter Tim Stafford had many menial jobs early in life — bus ting their best feet forward, reports The Economist. boy, janitor, window washer and irrigation-pipe mover. He didn’t Aware that the financial crisis gave their reputations always enjoy them but he learned important lessons that have a black eye, firms are trying to show they have served him through life. “I learned how to keep at a job and not plenty of soul. cut corners, even when nobody is watching. I learned that workEver since the crisis, students reportedly have ing hard at a job is actually easier than loafing at it.” become more concerned about the ethics of their Even low-skill jobs like flipping hamburgers can be helpful. future employers. “Banks have cottoned on,” says “True, a job selling hamburgers won’t make a splash on your the magazine, “placing much more emphasis on resume,” says Stafford. “It will, though, teach you how to show social responsibility in their recruitment presentaup on time, behave responsibly, do your duty without shirking tions. Prospective applicants learn that working for and get along with your co-workers. With those lessons learned, a bank will help the global economic recovery and you’ll do all right in the working world.” remedy social injustice.” At a different level, beware the lure of the fat paycheck. Goldman Sachs’ recruiting messages target Many people have gone into jobs (or kept them too long) those who are “interested in serving something because of money. Choosing work solely on the basis of money greater than their own personal interest,” people can doom you to what writer Blaine Smith calls “a life of proswho want to “make a difference in the world.” perous mediocrity.” Big firms are also promising to treat employees Putting financial considerations at the top of the list of better. One “announced that its junior staff will priorities is possibly “the most insidious factor keeping Chrisno longer work between Friday night and Sunday tians from being where God wants them,” he says. “Many are morning — though they should still ‘check their promoted from a position where they are using their gifts to a BlackBerrys on a regular basis’.” better-paying, more respectable position which does not tap their potential as well. Before long they adapt to a more extravagant lifestyle that is difficult to give up. They can’t free themselves from ‘the golden handcuffs’.” Another set of handcuffs comes from geographical inertia — staying where you are because you don’t want to move, whether that’s across town or across the country. “Many of us will find the opportunity to use our most important gifts only if we’re willing to forge beyond our comfort zones,” Smith writes.

Capitalism with soul

Excerpted from You’re Hired! Looking for work in all the right places, a career guide from MEDA. Available for free download at www.meda.org

The Marketplace January February 2014

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