Vision Quest

Bob Weinstein is a journalist who covers technology, project management, the workplace and career development.

  Career Development  

People often take jobs for reasons that are far different from the ones that keep them rooted to the same job. Unfortunately, most job seekers never think about that. If they did, there would be far less turnover, not to mention angst accompanying job changing.

Traditionally, the job-choosing process is pretty basic. We match our skills to a job description, and if the pay and benefits are a lot better than our last position, we apply for the job. But we fail to consider the very criteria that prompts us to hold onto jobs, observes Dave Hickman, managing partner of HirePursuit, an Indianapolis company specializing in consulting and recruiting.

We remain at jobs because we share the same vision and are in sync with the company's culture, says Hickman. Put vision, culture and pay/benefits together, and you have the essential ingredients of a perfect match. Workers who might normally jump ship when more money is dangled in front of them somewhere else stay right where they are. They've learned that there are many ingredients to the career-contentment stew that most people never think about.

Having worked with companies as both a consultant and headhunter, Hickman has been pondering this issue for several years.

So why don't job candidates investigate a company's vision and culture? It's easy to blame job seekers by arguing that …

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