50 Percent of Workers (or More) Are in the Wrong Job: How do you pick the right job?

Research suggests that between 50% and 80% of workers are in the wrong jobs—i.e. roles that do not match their knowledge, skills, and abilities. This is a stunning figure, if accurate, and it represents a waste of resources because employees who are not well suited for their jobs are less effective.

 Students entering the workforce now could be employed for up to 50 years. Even if you work for only 35 years, that is still a long time to be unhappy.

Recruiters and hiring managers I have spoken with over the years have said they aim to match the right people with the right jobs, but, if more than half of all workers are in the wrong job, it’s not happening very often.

So, matching yourself with the right job is really your mission during job search. This means selecting the correct job target. You will be closer to the job you want at the salary you deserve when you set a realistic job target. Elements of a job target include, but are not limited to, picking an appropriate:

1. Job title,
2. Career level,
3. Industry or sector, and
4. Metropolitan area.

All four elements are important. Address them explicitly or implicitly in your resume’s personal brand statement and accomplishment-based summary. Additionally, all four elements of your job target should be reflected in your LinkedIn headline, contact card, and “about” section.

Job Title or Function

The job title or function answers the question “what do you do?” Are you an accountant, software engineer, customer service representative, administrative assistant, etc.? Prospective employers, recruiters, and industry contacts are not going to analyze your work history and education to figure out what job function to put you in.

Often, I see resumes that highlight a jobseeker’s degrees and college major. But many jobseekers are not working in jobs that are related to their field of study. For example, one client has a law degree but works as a software engineer in aerospace. If your job function is not clearly related to your field of study, highlighting your specialization will not help you get the right job. This means you will have to emphasize the job title or function you are pursuing, rather than your field of study in school unless the two are closely related.

Career Level

The next element of your job target is your career level. Are you seeking work as an intern, entry level staff member, experienced individual contributor (sometimes called a journeyman), senior level, supervisor, or executive?

Hiring teams will analyze your background to decide whether you are qualified for the career level they need to fill. For example, a jobseeker I worked with wanted to apply for a job at the United Nations that required ten years of specialized experience in a certain field. She just finished graduate school in the field. Her experience prior to graduate school was as a customer service rep at a bank.

As career management coaches, we don’t tell jobseekers whether or not they are qualified. Instead, we ask questions that help jobseekers find their own answers. For example, I asked the jobseeker to match her credentials to the job announcement before engaging me to collaborate on a resume. She saw this job target would not work for her. It would not be productive to apply for a job requiring ten years of experience with a graduate degree but no work experience in the field.

Industry or Sector

It’s important to address the industry or sector you want to work in. A hospital accountant for example, deals with a different maze of rules and regulations than a real-estate accountant. You’ll have to demonstrate, at a minimum, that you are flexible enough to learn and then implement a different set of rules if you are coming from a different industry.

The heading on your resume might read “Senior Healthcare Accountant,” or “Senior Real-estate Accountant” rather than “Senor Accountant” to clarify the expertise you bring to the table.

Metropolitan Area

Consider the location where you want to work even when you are targeting remote work. The best approach is for your resume and LinkedIn profile to reflect the location where you want to work, rather than where you are now. Otherwise you may be eliminated from consideration, or you may not be found in searches, when the employer wants you to be in a certain geographic area. An employer may not want to pay relocation costs. Employers may limit their search to jobseekers in their geographic or metropolitan area when filling remote rolls for a variety of legal and economic reasons, too.

While you probably won’t include your location in your brand heading, it will be implied by the location in your resume header and LinkedIn contact card.

What if You Lack a Job Target?

Economic realities may dictate that you find employment regardless of your qualifications and goals. That means you need a “day job” while you determine and then find your “dream job.” Ironically, it may be more difficult to devise a resume in this case because you’ll have to demonstrate transferrable skills for the day job.

For example, when I worked with a teacher that wanted to find customer service jobs, I emphasized her role in serving parents and administrators, and responding to their questions. Every job has an aspect of customer service, even if you serve coworkers.

A challenge you might face is to identify your dream job after you have landed a day job, sometimes called a survival job. Career management coaches have myriad strategies and resources that can help you do this. We’ll cover some of these in upcoming blog posts. The bottom line is that you will need to identify a target job when you begin a career marketing campaign. Prospective employers will not know what problems or opportunities you can address for them if you do not take this critical first step. It’s like starting a business whitout a mission statement. Most importantly, you could avoid being among the 50% of American workers who are in the wrong job for them!