Your morning alarm sounds off and you let out a huge sigh, wishing you could rather stay in bed! As grateful as you are that you have a job, it feels like your head is reluctantly, yet responsibly, dragging your body to work every-single-day. You get to work, give your to-do-list a single glance and decide that coffee is of greater priority.  And continues to be of greater priority at every slight chance throughout the day… and throughout the week… and, well, throughout the year.

 

Sound familiar?

 

This is a pretty common scenario for many! Most people feel a career ‘block’ or unhappiness in their job at some point. While in some cases, this may be related to an uninspiring boss or demotivating company culture, in a large number of cases that dreadful feeling in the pit of the tummy is caused by a career ‘mismatch’!

 

Simply defined as choosing a career or job role that does not in fact match your profile!

 

Take time to ask yourself -“why did you choose the career or job role that you’re in?”

Think about it for a second…or two.

 

If you’re lost for words, or simply answered-“I didn’t, it found me”; “because it was the only thing available; “I needed a job”; “it seemed nice”; or any other generic response, other than “because it’s what I’m passionate about!” , you may be a victim of the mismatch syndrome.

 

The mismatch syndrome is a frustrating condition of being in a career or role that conflicts with your strengths, personality preferences and interests. Yes, while not everyone gets to have the perfect package of tailor made careers and job roles to match their every characteristic, understanding key factors that may serve as a significant challenge to you can change your game!

 

If your strength is ‘people orientation’ but you’re spending 8 hours a day behind a desk of a demarcated booth predominantly crunching the numbers, you’re likely to start feeling isolated, lonely and uninspired.  Or, perhaps you’re the target driven go-getter that enjoys a challenge or two, but finding yourself in a role that keeps you occupied with mundane admin and routine tasks. Knowing the mismatch can help you to turn your career around and give you the motivation to reach greater heights!

 

And let’s be honest, it’s easy to find fault in any external reason as to why we’re unhappy in our job right? (Well, unless you do have a monstrous boss or a monstrosity of a workload!), and so we tend to focus our unhappiness in the workplace on just about every reason that is readily available (everything but ourselves!). Perhaps it’s time to reflect to see whether the actual reason is that your career is in conflict with a key strength or characteristic that is dominant in your personality.

 

How do you go about deciding what strengths and characteristics could play a significant role in your career satisfaction? Some are able to reflect and consult people around them to help them decide. But, as a Psychometric Assessment Specialist, I believe the outcome of taking an assessment to unravel yourself is a treasure to be discovered! Psychometric assessments are reliable, accurate and insightful tools to provide you with the deeper self-reflection that may not easily come as a realization, and simply helps you to fit the puzzle pieces together to see the best version of yourself and align your goals accordingly!