How to Get a Dream Job

I was having lunch the other day with a friend who had been out of work for a year. He finally had a decent offer on the table and asked me out because he wanted my opinion. “It doesn’t look like a bad job, but what if something better comes along?” he asked. He then proceeded to tell me all the reasons the position might not be a perfect fit.

I listened carefully, nodded empathetically, and when it was my turn to offer an opinion wanted to be kind. Instead I blurted out: “You’re kidding right? Take the job!”

Taking a breath, I defended my position: We are all searching for dream jobs, but they don’t exist (with the possible exception of Sports Illustrated swimsuit models and pro hockey players, and I didn’t think he was in shape for either gig).

Through all the months of soul searching, my friend had built up a list of expectations for a new job: it had to make him happy and fulfilled, play to his strengths, give him time for family, allow him to grow and develop, pay him handsomely. He’d built up enough expectations and conditions to fill a Volkswagen.

Instead, I reasoned with him, you take the job, come in before anyone else, stay later than anyone, take on extra assignments, be the consummate team player, become indispensible. After all, after researching workplace engagement for the past twenty years, the people I’ve met who have the most motivating jobs made them that way.

It’s called job sculpting.

Take the example offered by Jane Hutcheson, at the time vice president of learning and development for TD Bank Financial Group. She had a group of professionals whose job it was to work with internal business lines to determine what they needed from her learning and development department. Of one employee she explained, he had a passion for public speaking, and his job didn’t involve anything like that. She built into his job a regular assignment to go to colleges to deliver presentations on career planning—making the bank look great to a host of about-to-graduate seniors and meeting his need to speak and perform.

She added, “It’s important to him, in terms of getting a sense of satisfaction and feeling good at what he does, that the job has elements of what he loves to do.” Her employee sought a little fun and socialization in his job, and was seeking some variety, excitement, and purpose too. She said he actually started to do his nine-to-five job better because she found a way to sculpt in just one new activity that met so many of his needs. It was a small adjustment that kept him engaged in all aspects of his work, and all because he sat down and told his manager what motivated him. That’s how it all starts.

The problem is: when we’re in the thick of the day-to-day grind of our jobs, it’s unlikely we’ll step back to assess like this to understand how well our work aligns with what we would really like to be doing. Maybe some of us are thinking that we don’t have a manager like Jane Hutcheson. And certainly no one has ever taught us to think about aligning our tasks with our motivators. And thus, disconnects are never identified and addressed.

My recommendation for everyone reading is to take a few minutes right now to identify where your work is currently satisfying and engaging and where it is not. And then, if it’s not, to understand, why isn’t it? Does the work you do every day fulfill your core motivators? If not, ask yourself these three sculpting questions:

• What Can I Add? Are there one or two specific tasks that could be added to your list of current responsibilities that would help fulfill your dominant motivators? Consider work done by other team members around you: are there unclaimed or emerging opportunities you could take on?

• What Can I Alter? Are there current responsibilities that might be altered somewhat to become more fulfilling to one of your top motivators?

• What Can I Transfer? Are there current responsibilities that you might be able to do less of or even remove entirely that aren’t fulfilling, especially items that don’t align with your motivators or those that are not as important to your job? Are there members of your team who might be interested in swapping responsibilities to freshen the team and open up opportunities to try new tasks?

As we spent three years interviewing people for our new book What Motivates Me, we found the vast majority of the most fulfilled people had been able to sculpt their current roles to do more of what they loved to do and a little less of what they found demotivating. Yes it took work, and it didn’t happen overnight. But it was worth it.

So, as I tried to elucidate to my friend, there is a prevalent notion that we all have to find our dream jobs, but for the vast majority of people that’s just nonsense. Many of the happiest people we’ve spoken with didn’t find their bliss down a new path; they made course corrections in jobs or careers they were already in.

My friend’s new job may not be perfect at the outset, but he’ll have more chance of sculpting it into what it could be if he’s on the ground proving himself every day. After all, who will managers take more time sculpting with? The answer: Those who are the most valuable to them!

PS, my friend did take the job: His wife told him to.

Chester Elton, along with co-author Adrian Gostick, is the New York Times bestselling author of All In and The Carrot Principle. His latest book, What Motivates Me, will be released Sept. 30, 2014.

Photo: Izu-Oshima, Tokyo, Japan (Hiroshi Nomura/Getty Images Prestige)