The 7 Things You Need To Look For In Your New Job (To Make You Happy)

The 7 Things You Need To Look For In Your New Job (To Make You Happy) The 7 Things You Need To Look For In Your New Job (To Make You Happy)Posted September 8, 2016, by Vivien LuuJob hunting isnt easy. From agonising over whether to sign off your cover letter with Sincerely or Regards to trying to take the perfect LinkedIn profile picture looking for a new job can be a back-breaking process thats about 33 per cent exciting, 25 per cent frustrating, and 1,000 per cent stressful. Since youre doing everything possible to put your best professional face forward, its easy to fall into the trap of thinking that your prospective employer holds all the power. But the job search is actually a two-way street. Sure, through the resume, cover letter and interview process, the company vets you. But heres the thing you vet the company too. And if you arent doing that, you absolutely should be Why, you ask? Because we spend a helluva lot of time at work over 80,000* hours in a lifetime in fact Thats a lot of meetings, a lot of emails and way too much time spent feeling miserable if you hate your job. So how do you find a job that makes you happy?1. A salary that puts food on the table (and meets your basic needs)A job needs to pay you what youre worth, and even more importantly, it needs to pay you enough to live life the way you want to.And no, thats notlage all about getting paid the big bucks. A seminal Princeton University study has found that a higher salary doesnt necessarily translate into feeling happier each day.Similarly, a review of 120 years of research on the relationship between employee happiness and salary has found that if you want employees to be happy and engaged, money is not the answer. Having said that, you do need a salary that meets your basic needs. If it doesnt, you need to go in to bat and negotiate a higher package, or you need to walk away. So, as boring as it may be, take out your calculator and do the maths so you can answer t he following questionsHow much do I need to earn to live life the way I want to?Whats the minimum salary Im willing to accept?Am I willing to sacrifice parts of my lifestyle in favour of a job I love?2. A job that lets you liveWork hours are another non-negotiable, since they have a huge impact on your happiness and health. Workaholics, listen up You want to work to live, not live to work.And Ive got science on my side to prove it.According to a report on job satisfaction published by Copenhagens Happiness Research Institute, work/life balance is one of the six key factors that contributes to job satisfaction.The think tank surveyed 2,600 workers to better understand what contributed to a happier work life, and found that a healthy relationship between our professional lives and our private lives was absolutely crucial.Along with this, science has found that long work hours can lead toPoorer sleep levelsIncreased risk of depressionThe possibility of developing heart complicationsDec reased productivity (thats right)So when youre hunting for a new job, make sure you find one that suits your lifestyle and has a healthy work/life balance byDeciding upfront whether youre looking for full-time, part-time, casual, contract work/freelance work, or a fly-in-fly-out arrangementFiguring out if you need flexibility, and finding out if theyre willing to accommodate youFinding out if youre expected to travel frequently as a part of your roleAsking what the usual work hours are (FYI Legally speaking, the Australian FairWork Obudsman says that employers can only make you work a maximum of 38 hours per week.)3. Work thats challenging, but not impossibleScience and popular belief are in agreement feeling satisfied and happy at work involves feeling engaged by what you do, and being so absorbed by the task at hand that youre able to get into the flow of things. Sounds a bit hippy dippy trippy, doesnt it? Seriously though, the researchers use the term flow to define when someo ne becomes totally absorbed in using ones skills to progress on a challenging task to the point where they completely lose track of time. How do you find work that lets you do that? Look for a good challenge Challenging work is something thats difficult enough to hold your attention and be rewarding to complete but nothing thats so difficult that it seems impossible. Heres a beautiful graph here that demonstrates my pointYou would think that having a job thats really easy would be fun.But if a job is too easy, you can expect to be bored out of your brains, watching the clock waiting for the day to end. But if its too demanding and youre out of your depth, youll be stressed up to your eyeballs.Neither are great things to feel at work, and both are probably why youve left