Should Salary Be Your Motivation?

You are looking forward to start working or you are currently working, but do not feel at ease and want a job change. What should you search for? Generally speaking, motivation to look for a particular kind of job depends on each individual, but we can agree on the fact that a decent salary, the one that supports your personal lifestyle and includes social benefits and holidays, would be the basis to start thinking about a company. However, this is far from being the most important and only issue to consider.

When you are looking for your first job, or a job change, key questions to ask yourself and investigate within a company are, for example: What activities are you truly passionate about? What are your ambitions? Do you see a clear career path for you in a given organization? Will they help you be more marketable by exposing you to a diversity of roles and responsibilities? Are they willing to support you with ongoing education? These questions prioritize the focus of the search on your personal growth and development, and whether valuable skills and experience can be acquired and deepened throughout your working life.

But targeting the right place would demand a thoughtful approach from you, which means to perform a thorough and honest insight of yourself first. Knowing your likes, dislikes and abilities will help you decide what sort of job will give you the most satisfaction. And it is no secret that the degree of satisfaction you attain at work will determine, to a certain amount, the extent of happiness you will experience in your personal life as well. A good quality of life, then, becomes a by-product of job satisfaction, and this too is intimately related to executing the work you love to do.

When you know what drives you and what are your personal motivations, the path to finding the right place should follow more naturally, and then it would be recommendable to research the companies that offer you real possibilities to reach those ambitions. Eventually, daring to ask the right questions at an interview will help you also clear out important elements of your potential employer, such as:

• Management and organizational culture: Do the beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviour of your immediate boss and overall company match those of yours?
• Potential for growth: Is the organization willing to invest in training, education and promotion for you? Will there be challenges that foster your growth?
• Security and stability: Is the financial health of the company adequate to sustain your work in the future?
• Location: Commuting can add a lot of stress in day to day life. Does the company allow flexible working hours or working partly from home?
• Engaging environment: Is the environment intellectually appealing, friendly and physically attractive?

These considerations bring light upon the key fact that the kind of job you would perform and the place where you would spend eight hours per day of your life are no trivial matters. Satisfaction, happiness and quality of life become determining factors, whereas salary, as important as it is, acquires only a relative relevance.

Paula Arellano Geoffroy