【中英双语】我们为何不善于选择合适的工作
Why Are We So Bad at Choosing the Right Job?
托马斯·查莫罗-普雷穆季奇（Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic） | 文
What would be your perfect job? Although there are well-defined parameters around what people actually want from work, our career-related choices are not always consistent with those parameters — even when we are consciously aware of them.
你最理想的工作是什么？尽管人们对于从工作中真正希望得到的东西有明确的标准，但是与职业生涯相关的选择并不总是满足这些标准——哪怕是在我们对那些标准有清醒意识的时候。
Consider that most of us want just three specific things from our jobs, namely:
细想一下，我们多数人只希望从工作中得到三样具体的东西：
A sense of competence and mastery: acquired by being given the chance to perform above the expectation of our role, and to grow through learning opportunities that make us better.
即能力感与掌控感。获此感觉是因为我们被赋予了机会，可以超越角色预期来表现自己，可以通过自我完善的学习机会而成长。
A sense of community or affiliation: the product of fair and respectful relationships with colleagues, and the sense that one is appreciated at work. This is why company culture is such a pivotal factor in driving satisfaction or dissatisfaction among employees.
集体感或归属感。这是与同事建立公平和尊重关系的产物，以及在工作中受到赞赏的感觉。这就是企业文化为何是让员工产生满意或不满意感觉的关键因素。
A sense of meaning and purpose: a feeling that we are devoted to something that matters, and that aligns with our core values and drivers.
意义感和使命感。这是一种我们投身于某件重要事情的感觉，那件事符合我们的核心价值和动因。
Of course, it would be naïve to assume that every person in the world has access to a career that ticks all three boxes. But, at the same time, workers everywhere are expected to attain these goals, regardless of macro-economic circumstances, potential, and talent. As a result, most people have an innate desire to pursue a version of their perfect job, or at least improve their current role — something academics call “job crafting.”
当然，如果认为世上每一个人都可以找到符合上述所有三个条件的职业，那就太天真了。可与此同时，任何地方的员工都理应实现这些目标，不管宏观经济环境、潜力及才华如何。结果，多数人内心都产生了追求某种完美工作的欲望，或者至少完善他们当前的角色——学术界称之为“工作形塑”。
This is not a bad thing. Optimizing your job to match your abilities and interests will likely improve how you feel and perform, something that almost seems too obvious to require scientific proof. Still, studies have been done, and unsurprisingly they show that job crafting is positively linked to employee engagement and employability, defined as the ability to get and keep desirable jobs and to remain relevant in the market throughout your career. Other research shows that job crafting enhances worker wellbeing.
这不是一件坏事。优化你的工作，使其与你的能力和兴趣相称，很可能会让你的感觉和表现更好，这一点似乎太显而易见，无需科学证据证明。尽管如此，研究已经进行，而且不出所料地表明，工作形塑与员工的敬业程度和就业能力呈正相关关系。就业能力的定义是获得且持有理想的工作，并在整个职业生涯中保持市场价值的能力。其他研究表明，工作形塑可以提升员工的幸福感。
A more relevant question may therefore be: If people are generally clear about what they want (and need) from work, why do so many of us make the wrong decision when choosing a job, particularly when we do have other choices?
因此，一个相关性更大的问题可能是：如果人们普遍清楚自己希望（并且需要）从工作中获得什么，为何我们当中还有那么多人在选择工作的时候做出了错误的决定，尤其是当我们的确还有别的选择的时候？
Research points to a few a reasons:
研究指出了几个原因：
Money talks – and people listen. As meta-analytic studies show, there is almost zero correlation between pay and job satisfaction. For example, lawyers earning $160,000 per year are as satisfied with their jobs as nurses making $35,000 per year. However, although money doesn’t satisfy, it still motivates. We make many, many, decisions focused on financial incentives, especially when it comes to our jobs. Even when people say that they would happily take a pay cut if they could work less, commute less, or have a more enjoyable job, they often don’t actually make those choices, and prefer to stick to the higher salary.
有钱能使鬼推磨——言听计从。正如综合分析研究所表明的，薪酬与工作满意度之间几乎是零相关的。比如，年收入16万美元的律师对工作的满意程度与年收入3.5万美元的护士相同。然而，虽然金钱不能使人满意，但它却可以激励人心。我们做很多决定时都是眼盯着经济刺激的，尤其是涉及工作决定的时候。即使有人说假如自己可以减少些工作、减少些通勤时间或者得到一份更令人愉悦的工作，他们乐意接受减薪，他们通常也不会真正做出那样的选择，而是宁愿继续拥有更高的薪水。
People are (too) good at tolerating bad jobs. We are probably more likely to put up with a bad job than a bad relationship. In fact, despite the popular view that people are happy with uncertainty and disinterested in long-term careers, the opposite is in fact true. When it comes to jobs and careers, it is really a case of “better the devil you know.” You can put people in meaningless roles and under bad managers, and they will still be reluctant to try something else, which explains the pervasiveness of low employee engagement scores even among the most successful companies in the world.
人们（太）善于忍受不好的工作。我们或许更乐意容忍一份糟糕的工作，而不愿意忍受恶劣的人际关系。实际上，尽管大家普遍认为人们喜欢接受不确定性，对长期的事业不感兴趣，但事实恰恰相反。当涉及工作和职业生涯时，这真的属于“熟悉的魔鬼比不熟悉的更好”的情形。你可以把人放置到毫无意义的岗位和糟糕的管理者手下，而他们仍然不愿意尝试其他事情。这就解释了即使在世界上最成功的企业中，为何员工的敬业度得分仍普遍很低。
Poor self-awareness limits smart choices. As I illustrate in my latest book, people are generally quite inept at evaluating their own talents. Even when they do decide to “follow their passions” there is just no guarantee that they will end up doing something well, let alone that it is useful or in-demand. This means that there is not always a clear ROI to taking risks and changing careers. A good example is the recent influx of entrepreneurial or start-up activity. Despite the appeal of this “entrepreneurship porn” to a large number of young individuals who are excited by the idea of being their own boss and solving problems that excite them — the prospects of attaining even marginal success are low. Sure, the tiny minority that may end up creating the next Apple or Google could end up giving a great deal back to society. But for each of those success stories there are millions of major failures. On average, people who quit traditional employment to work for themselves will end up working more to earn less and contribute less to the wider economy — when, in many cases, they may have been happier and more successful working for someone else.
自我意识的欠缺限制了明智的选择。正如我在最近的新书中阐述的那样，人们普遍不擅长评估自己的才能。即使他们真的决定“随心所欲”，也不能保证他们最终会把事情做好，更别提它是否有用或受人欢迎。这意味着承担风险和改变职业并不总是有明确的投资回报率。一个很好的例子就是最近涌现的创业或者说初创活动。尽管这部“创业色情片”吸引了一大批一想到可以做自己的老板并解决让自己感到刺激的问题时就兴奋不已的年轻人——但获得哪怕微乎其微的成功的可能性也很低。当然，最终可能创造下一个苹果或谷歌公司的极少数人最终可能会给予社会大量回报。可是每产生一个成功的故事，都会有数以百万计的重大失败。平均而言，辞去传统工作为自己打工的人最终会劳碌更多，收入更少，对整体经济的贡献也更少——而在许多情况下，他们为别人打工可能过得更快乐、更成功。
It's hard to know what to expect. Organizations spend a great deal of time marketing their jobs and careers in a highly desirable and appealing way. Job branding or company branding is an integral part of the war for talent. Look at any company website and you will see convincing statements about their commitment to diversity, innovation, corporate social responsibility, lifelong learning, and agile culture. Even trivial jobs camouflaged with sexy titles can appear quite desirable: “head prioritization ninja,” “director of possibilities,” “chief happiness officer,” and “global identity engineer,” to name just a few. Regardless of your background, expertise, and industry, a successful hiring process requires finding the right person for the right role, which means applicants must have a proper understanding of the role itself. If your expectations for a role are too far off from reality, then it will be very hard for you to make the right career move to begin with.
何以期待难以获知。企业花费大量时间以非常理想和诱人的方式推销他们的工作和职业。工作品牌或公司品牌的树立是人才争夺战中不可或缺的一部分。看看任何一家公司的网站，你都会看到令人信服的声明，表明他们致力于多元化、创新、企业社会责任、终生学习和敏捷文化。即便是用迷人头衔伪装起来的不起眼工作也显得相当诱人：“优先级忍者领班”“发展潜力主管”“首席幸福官”“全球身份工程师”等等。不管你的背景、专业知识和行业如何，成功的招聘过程需要为合适的岗位找到合适的人选。这意味着求职者必须对岗位本身有恰当的了解。如果你对某个岗位的期待与现实相差太远，那么你一开始就很难做出正确的职业选择。
In order to land the job you really want, you need to be clear about what you are good at, what the job in question is really like, and de-emphasize financial incentives to fulfill other values and career drivers. Above all, you will probably benefit from being less resilient so you are less likely to put up with a bad job or a bad boss. The important thing to remember is that only a minority of people ever regret quitting a job. This implies that people tend to stay in jobs for longer than they should. As Hippocrates famously noted, Ars longa, vita brevis. It takes a long time to develop expertise and become skilled. Life is short — so don't be afraid to choose the path you actually want.
为了得到你真正想要的工作，你需要清楚自己擅长什么，考虑中的工作究竟是什么样子，不再强调金钱刺激，以实现其他价值和职业动因。最重要的是，适应力的降低很可能让你受益，这样你就不太可能忍受糟糕的工作和糟糕的老板。要记住的重要事情是，只有少部分人曾为辞职感到后悔。这意味着人们坚守工作的时间往往长于他们应该从事的时间。正如希波克拉底(Hippocrates)的名言所示，艺术长远，生命短暂(Ars longa, vitabrevis)。 培养专业知识、拥有技能需要很长时间。生命是短暂的——因此不要害怕选择你真正希望走的路。
托马斯·查莫罗-普雷穆季奇是万宝盛华公司的首席人才科学家，伦敦大学学院和哥伦比亚大学的商业心理学教授，哈佛大学创业金融实验室合作伙伴。他著有《为何如此多能力不足的人成为了领导人？》（WhyDo So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?）
