Job Seekers Looking For Increase Satisfaction & Long-term Career Plans.

As the economy has been picking up, more persons are looking for increased job satisfaction along the career paths that they feel are right for them. The Five O’Clock Club, a nationwide career coaching and outplacement company, compared a recent survey of its alumni with one taken three years ago. In 2002, only 18% of those surveyed were looking for jobs because either they were underemployed or unhappy. The current survey showed an increase in these percentages to a total of 28%, according to Richard Bayer, COO of the Five O’Clock Club.

Bayer notes, “Job satisfaction, along with career planning, underlie the entire Five O’Clock Club method for career planning and development, from getting your first job offer to making strategic moves throughout one’s career.” The Club’s new series of six books is built upon taking steps to help ensure a satisfying career. For those already working, The Five O’Clock Club’s first book in this new series, “Targeting a Great Career,” (July; Delmar Learning) relies heavily on self-assessment, so that your career can be ‘great’ in your own eyes, not just in the eyes of others.

In “Navigating Your Career: Develop Your Plan, Manage Your Boss, Get Another Job Inside,” (July; Delmar Learning), The Five O’Clock Club shows readers how to follow the ‘pursuit of happiness’ when making strategic career decisions all throughout their lives. These new books stress self-assessment and satisfaction to much a greater degree than do most of what’s out there on the market, because you spend the bulk of your time awake on the job.

Bayer adds, “We advise job seekers to look ahead — Where will they would like to be in 5, 10 and 40 years from now? This is our Forty-Year Vision, as detailed in Navigating Your Career. So, ideally, each job one takes should be aligned with reaching the Forty-Year Vision, in addition to being satisfying and what someone wants now. When the economy is weak, some people will take jobs that are not the best fit with their long-range goals. Our data show that now that the economy is taking an upturn, finding a satisfying job that fits in with one’s long-term vision and has become a much more critical issue.”

The importance of career planning to Club members is revealed in both alumni surveys. Club “graduates” where asked, “What are the top factors that are most important in selecting a new job?” In 2005, these are taking a job that lies on one’s career path and fits in with the Forty-Year Vision (30% in 2005, up from 25% in 2002). The other leading factor, the work itself, has become less important than it was three years ago. In 2002, respondees gave the work itself a 19% rating. In 2005, this dropped to 12%, as the longer term aspects of employment became more important to workers.

Bayer notes, “Making long-term career plans is a learned skill. Most of us simply look at the each job offer as it comes along. We do not really think out where we want to be in ten or 40 years and have no real ‘vision’ as we call it at the Club.”

Bayer’s comment about how little career planning most of us do is borne out by many sources. For example, a 2002 survey of high school students by the National Association of Manufacturers stated: “Most teenagers are receiving little to no career guidance outside the home and are not pursuing appropriate educational plans for real world career opportunities and business needs.”

Bayer concludes, “Even if you’ve never made and followed long-term career plans, it’s not too late to late to start. We have found that, in over 25 years of helping job seekers, planning generally leads to a better career, more satisfaction, and better compensation, no matter what the circumstances.”

For more information at http://www.FiveOClockClub.com

Richard Bayer, Ph.D., an economist, ethicist and author on labor economics, is the Chief Operating Officer of The Five O’Clock Club. He is a frequent guest on local and national media including the TODAY SHOW, CNN and others. He and the Club have also been featured in The Economist, Success magazine, FORTUNE magazine, Business Week magazine and other publications.