How to Take Charge of Your Job Search Based on Your Values ​​(Opinion)

Having worked in the career development of graduate students and postdocs for over 15 years, I’ve heard both great and terrible career advice. Some of my least favorite quotes include: “Apply for everything” and “You have to go where the jobs are.” I don’t like these more than others, because they’re based on assumptions that you’re at the mercy of the job market and that this career is the most important aspect of your life – and that it’s too important to live anywhere or do anything to achieve it. That job. Fortunately, people are much more complicated than this.

I also don’t like the “follow your passion” advice. It’s a vague and toxic way to think about your future. Sure, you can be passionate about certain aspects of your work, but in reality, a career is just one aspect of life. Having a passion now assumes it won’t change over time, but change is something we all know will happen. Instead, the best way to feel empowered in your job search is to identify what’s most important to you and then design a life that includes work but also focuses on your values. Let’s find out what a values-based job search can look like, and how you can take back some of your power.

In an advanced values ​​framework, values ​​serve as parameters for your next work environment, helping you clearly articulate what you need on the job. You would never move to a new city and move to every apartment building when searching for your next living situation. You’ll have specific requirements about how much you can pay for rent, how much you can afford to move, and how many bedrooms you need. Likewise, when applying for jobs, the first step is not to know what you are qualified for or what you can do. It’s to figure out what’s most important to you and how you can maximize your time and resources.

So, before applying to jobs, evaluate what you need from a job and use those needs as filters for the types of jobs you decide to invest time applying for. Many free and trustworthy resources can help you clarify your values, including Imagine a Ph.Dthe Inventory of life values And Stanford Purposeful Action Group. The most important part of this exercise is to narrow your values ​​down to five and rank them from most important to least important. This arrangement can also set you up to have good conversations in the interview process and clear negotiation tools regarding needs and wants.

Next, determine what these top five values ​​mean to you. For example, the website is often an obvious job search engine. But how each person defines what location specifically means varies greatly. While one individual’s search may be limited to three cities, another may care less about the specific city and instead need nearby mountains or bodies of water.

Likewise, if creativity is something you need in a work environment, how do you define that? Is it about access to creative tools and people, or do you need the freedom to pursue creative ideas or projects? What if stability is something you need in a work environment, what is it for you? Are you interested in working in an organization where the workload is relatively routine and evenly paced, or where stability means no one has been laid off or fired in the past 20 years?

Balance is another value that people often list in their top five, but what does that actually mean? Do you prefer to separate work and personal time, with a clear work schedule and no work-related communications outside of work hours? Or is balance about the ability to work at a pace, time and place that suits you? One aspect that contributes to achieving balance is a clear understanding of what is expected of you at work. Ambiguity creates environments where people take on more than they can, and this leads to burnout at work. It is prevalent in academia and often manifests itself through the ambiguity of degree progression or the tenure process.

Therefore, when thinking about what is important to you, it is important to understand the necessary conditions in the work environment that create the culture you want. Since values ​​can have many different meanings, clarifying your own definition will help you sort and identify opportunities that meet your conditions.

Now that you’ve identified your business values, you can prepare your job search to align with those values. Location and compensation are among the easiest filtering criteria you can set in any job alert. But filtering for more precise information like stability, balance, or independence requires more time and planning on the front end of your job search.

Values-based job searches are most productive when your search for organizations goes beyond a quick LinkedIn check. You can dig deeper by talking with people who actually work in those organizations about their projects, departments, organizational culture, performance expectations, and what they value at work. But before meeting with them, you need to identify questions that will provide you with as much information as possible and contact them as much as possible. When someone asks a good question, we come to understand who they are and what they mean in a more interesting way.

Here are some questions, aligned with values, that you can use in your interview. Good questions are specific, give examples, and make people think about their work in reflective ways.

• What is important to you in a work environment, and how often do you realize those values ​​at work? What is important to you that has not been achieved?
• When was the last time your leadership made a decision based on employee input? (cooperation)
• When was the last time someone was promoted, and how was it celebrated? (Recognition and achievement)
• What does the balance between project work and team communication look like, and does either go beyond the typical 40-hour work week? (balance)
• Based on your experience, what other organizations do you think have similar work cultures? Are there organizations you would like to work with and why?

This last question is important, because it will help you crystallize a target list of organizations that might align with your values. The more people you talk to, the more you’ll learn the ins and outs of how specific entities operate and what the range of work cultures looks like. A values-based approach leverages relationships, research, and insights to navigate the job market.

Use this list to start your job search highlighting your five most important values. And the next time someone tells you to “apply to everything,” you can feel confident that you apply to everything Who aligns with you.