
We reviewed over 60 studies about what makes for a dream job - tfang17
https://80000hours.org/career-guide/job-satisfaction/
======
robertwiblin
I'm one of the authors of this piece, which was produced by a YC-backed non-
profit trying to revolutionise careers advice (80,000 Hours). AMA!

~~~
mattnewport
I think this is an important area of research and it's great to see you trying
to summarize the research in a digestible manner for people to apply but my
impression from this article and other material I've read is that there's
still a lot more work to do to tease out correlation and causation and
translate the research into actionable advice.

For example, assuming that 'Work that helps others' is actually causative (and
not that happier people tend to choose that work), what are the identifying
characteristics of that type of work? What makes midwifery (from the article)
more satisfying than say serving in a restaurant? Both appear to help others.
Is it the magnitude of the help? The degree of personal engagement?

How can someone better identify 'Work you're good at'? Again, assuming it is
causative (and not that happier people rate their own competency higher), how
can someone effectively identify their comparative advantage? Presumably for
career choice there is a strong effect of demand vs. supply in skills - I can
be 'good' at snowboarding by most people's standards but have no chance of
making a career at it. The advice on its own is not very actionable.

The article makes a common conflation of high achieving individuals with work
satisfaction and yet the two do not necessarily match up (do we know that
Steve Jobs and Einstein were more satisfied with their lives than average?)
and these two examples from the article seem to not fit the 'Work that's
engaging' criteria of 'Clear tasks, with a clearly defined start and end.' or
'Feedback, so you know how well you’re doing.', at least in the short to
medium term.

Like I say, I think this type of research is valuable but I find little that
is clearly actionable in my own life, with the exception of simple things like
'avoid long commutes' and from elsewhere in the happiness literature 'spend on
experiences rather than things'.

~~~
BenjaminTodd
I'm the lead author of the piece and I agree there's a lot more work to do on
these issues. That's why we set up 80,000 Hours.

We address one of your questions in a later article: how to work out what
you're good at [https://80000hours.org/career-guide/personal-
fit/](https://80000hours.org/career-guide/personal-fit/) (And beyond this, you
need to make predictions - I think the book superforecasters is good on what
to do there)

------
scentoni
ObXKCD: [http://xkcd.com/1346/](http://xkcd.com/1346/)

------
mysuperrealname
I applied for 80k hours for a front-end job (first time I've really applied
for a job). Didn't get it but now I see this:

> [http://i.imgur.com/2988oNg.png](http://i.imgur.com/2988oNg.png)

~~~
robertwiblin
OK I think I've fixed this now!

~~~
mysuperrealname
Great. Now that I see the full thing, I _am_ using an ad-blocker as you can
see in the screenshot (fully loaded and "max security"). However it doesn't
hide the pop-up by default. If you actually want to allow for that, maybe you
should add the class _advertising_ , _ads_ or similar (:

------
yanilkr
You have to take such studies with a grain of salt.

The most important one that put hacker news on the map was "Working for
yourself" is missing from the list. Paul graham in the early days of hacker
news wrote great things about miracles happening when people worked for
themselves in small teams.

That kind of philosopher leadership has been missing in tech community as a
whole. Look at comments and topics discussed on hacker news. These aspiring
engineers are talking about how some one else should pay them basic income so
they could innovate and many other lame excuses. very sad.

~~~
robertwiblin
Working for yourself will often be fulfilling, because it can provide many of
the six things we list that matter:

* Work you’re good at * Work that helps others * Engaging work that lets you enter a state of flow (freedom, variety, clear tasks, feedback) * Supportive colleagues * A job that meets your basic needs, like fair pay, short commute and reasonable hours * A job that fits your personal life.

~~~
yanilkr
Disagree. Working for yourself would provide none of these but allows you to
create all/many of these out of your sheer will. These things are not a pre-
condition.

~~~
robertwiblin
It doesn't necessarily provide those things certainly. But inasmuch as it
makes people fulfilled, it will mostly be because working for yourself is
providing those things. :)

~~~
yanilkr
or there is a simpler explanation. Those 60 studies made assumptions about
what a job is and that definition would have excluded working for yourself.

The study would still make perfect sense if you look at job as an employment
working for some other employer.

------
ljw1001
Findings unsurprising, and a rather annoying, popup-in-your-face website.

~~~
robertwiblin
No pop-ups --> 10% as many people join our newsletter --> we can't track
whether we are having any impact --> no donations --> website disappears.

I don't find the results that surprising, but many people do.

~~~
Riseed
Regardless of whether your argument is correct [0], I can't imagine your
target audience is more likely to sign up (vs. bounce) when hit with a
_second_ pop-up before reading half an article.

[0] e.g. pop-ups --> less tech savy users 'dismiss' popup by signing up -->
newsletter unread and/or marked as spam --> can't {accurately} track whether
you're having any impact --> etc

~~~
robertwiblin
Yeah you are right, we may be over-doing it. Think we should drop the all-
screen one from the first page view when we add a special appeal because of a
HN spike? I'll bring that up with the team. :)

