They say that you should do what you love, and then you’ll never work a day in your life. But is that reasonable? When we do what we love, as employment, our relationship changes to the work. We have constraints that come in which are beyond our control. Stakeholders to appease, clients to service and colleagues to support.

So why should we look to be doing work that we can be genuinely enthused by?

After a number of years of corporate disruption, work looks different now. It isn’t just where you work from, it’s also how you do that work and the kind of work you want to do. This coupled with an incoming generation who do not accept the supposed correlation between working late into the night, running three too many projects, and being considered a successful professional.

Professional success is not quantitative, it’s qualitative. Success is not working the most hours, completing the most projects, having the most stress-induced health problems. Professional success is doing the best work you can, and that comes from your connection to the work, not how much of it there is.

Love What You Do

Finding employment in an interesting field, based on our intellectual and emotional interests is a foundation for professional success.

Not because it inspires you to work 65 hour weeks, to burn up personal resources to finish projects with punishing deadlines, but because you will have more to draw on to make the work more successful, which will in turn make you more successful.

Imagine two projects, one in a field you love and one where you don’t hate it, but it’s dull to you. On the first project you’re likely to have a working lexicon of ideas, opinions, experience that you can bring to bear on the work, which is absent in the latter, making it a grind to complete. To get close to success on the second project, you have to acquire information about something that you might not be at all interested in. You can complete the project in a functional way, but not a fulfilling one.

If work is what you do each day, and the cumulation of those days is your career, it’s hard to envisage how career success will come if you are hampered in the daily work you do.

Career Success

Doing work that you love creates professional success in a personally satisfying way, which in turn can fuel your broader professional success. The elevations of status and remuneration are (hopefully) tied to your ability to create good work.

What’s more, success in one role, translates to other opportunities when the time comes to move on to the next challenge. Your ability to talk about the work that you love to do will come far more fluidly and naturally in interviews and work discussions. We all know how much easier it is to do that, than to find the points of interest and enthusiastic approach when we talk about work we’re dispassionate about.

If you want success to come as part of your career, a fundamental part of your ongoing career development planning needs to be focused on a base of doing work that interests and engages you.

Success will never be guaranteed in our professional lives but achieving it will be easier.

The Passion vs Money debate

Of course there are many factors that contribute to overall job satisfaction, including working for the right company, team culture, work life balance, salary and working conditions, supportive management and development opportunities.

Passion vs money is an internal debate that everyone has at some point in their career. For example, some of the candidates we work with go to university to complete a scientific degree and then end up in a profession that has nothing to do with the subject they majored in, such as Accountancy. Why? Because it pays. On the flip side, many of our super bright candidates enter a science related profession and love what they do, only to find themselves not making as much money as they had hoped for.

As a specialist scientific recruiter CY Partners love nothing more than working with candidates to find them meaningful and fulfilling scientific careers that tick all the boxes. We understand that the search for science jobs can be daunting, so we always take the time to listen to the challenges our candidates face and to understand their requirements in depth.

We recently helped one of our valued candidates, Charlotte, find a great new role in Biotech. Here’s what she has to say about the experience she had with CY Partners during her job search:

“The team at CY Partners are knowledgeable, friendly, professional and above all, prioritise the right fit for you. I now have an excellent job at a prestigious Biotech company that I really enjoy. The entire process from first discussion to job placement was incredibly fast and stress-free. My consultant patiently listened to my preferences and concerns and went above and beyond to find the perfect role for me. I would highly recommend CY Partners, they know what they’re doing!”

If you’re interested in transitioning to a career you’ll love, we can help! Contact us here.