Over the last 10 years, you could hear me say many times, “I found my dream
job and in many ways, we help people find theirs”. I also said, “I don’t see
Sundays or Mondays any differently than Wednesdays and Fridays”.
Unfortunately, I think that is somewhat rare. There are too many people out
there doing jobs that don’t excite them, interest them, use their strengths, etc.
There are tools to help determine possible jobs/careers that best fit a person’s
personality, values, intelligence, skills, experience, talents, and physical abilities.
Not only one or two tools should be relied on, but getting information from many
and putting that data together can definitely increase the chance of getting a
good match between the person and the job. Now, I certainly understand that
not everybody has the luxury of going out and researching this with a career
counselor or even if they determine some better career choices, there are
sometimes obstacles to changing careers at certain times in our lives. However,
the knowledge gained can even help us approach the careers/jobs that we are in
with different attitudes and behaviors that can improve our quality of life.
Looking at this from an organization’s point of view, these tools can be used to
assess a job that needs to be filled and to assess candidates against the job.
When a match is found this way, the chance of success is much higher and
hiring costs are greatly reduced. Other benefits are incurred as well, since the
employees are more engaged and more productive when there is a good job fit.
In my past corporate life, whenever I let an employee go for performance
reasons, I didn’t look at it with dread, as my colleagues did. I truly felt that I was
allowing the person to move on to find their next path that fit them better and
maybe even find a career they were passionate about, where they would enjoy
Mondays as much as Fridays.