Is this the right role? Considerations....

I had an interesting conversation this morning. I was asked to provide some insights on product enhancements for a service I utilized in my former role as a recruiter.  Just as we were finishing up the conversation, the person I was speaking with made a comment about my previous role; asking if I was sure I wanted to leave that career path. It forced me to think a bit more about this idea...

One of the hard truths of the corporate world is that jobs and the duties and responsibilities associated with these positions are set up to benefit the company. Seems simple enough, but yet we overlook this idea so often when we become frustrated in our roles. Incentives and rewards at a company are set up to motivate the behavior they want from their employees.

Say you own a bakery and you are hiring a baker. Your business goal is to be a quick service bakery marketing to commuters coming through your location. Thinking along these lines, you want your staff to work towards speed and volume, so you would reward behavior such as the number of bagels the baker could produce for the morning rush rather than how pretty they looked on display. It's not to say that presentation quality is not important, but think about your customers. Your target consumers are likely not going to spend a lot of time admiring the presentation of the bagel, so you shouldn't be asking your staff to spend much time on that aspect either.

The reason I provide this example is to help you understand or recognize that just because a specific role at a specific company wasn't the right fit for you, doesn't mean that you were ill fit for the role itself. It could be that the aspects of the role that were most important for the company were not in line with the ones you perform best. Coming back to the bakery example, if you are a baker that is a visual perfectionist and you like to ensure that every bagel has the proper proportion of sesame seeds, perhaps a bakery that is most concerned with display and presentation would be a better fit for your skills than a bakery that is focused on volume and speed.

It took me some time to work this idea out. There are certainly aspects of recruiting that I really enjoyed, but the aspects that were more important to my employer were not the ones I was most passionate about. This ill fit was profound enough for me that I thought my only choice was to leave recruiting altogether. I have finally begun to recognize that I just need to find a company/position whose goals and priorities are in line with mine. I encourage you to do the same.

Job descriptions and titles can differ vastly across companies and industries. Take the time to understand the goals of the organizations and ask the tough questions. Remember a good fit benefits both sides of the employment decision. If you are already motivated and excited about a job and its the behavior that benefits the company, its a win for both sides.