Career satisfaction is a funny thing. Most of us have suspicions about how things might have gone differently for us so far. Most of us also passed up job opportunities at various points in our lives that we sometimes wonder if we should have taken. Until we’ve made it to the very top – if even then – there’s always an itch inside us that prods us into wondering whether we’ve really reached our potential and done all we can in our work lives. We asked employees, “Are you satisfied with where you are currently at in your career?” Results are below.
This info comes courtesy of an ongoing study by Comparably. Over 10,000 employees responded to the question.
Just half of all employees say they feel satisfied with where their career is. Women were just 1 percentage point more satisfied than their male counterparts.
Only 45% of African-Americans feel they are satisfied with their careers. The “other” segment was also lower than overall averages. Hispanic/Latino and Caucasian votes were slightly more positive than overall male and female votes. The “other” segment was also lower than overall averages. Asian/Pacific Islanders were in line with the average for overall men.
Nearly three-quarters of executives, who have made it nearly to the top of their professions, say they are satisfied with their careers. That means just over one-quarter of C-Suite employees are NOT satisfied with where their careers have taken them thus far. Human Resources also had a much higher satisfaction rate regarding their career status than the overall average for all employees. On the other end of the scale, workers in Design, Finance, Operations, Sales, IT, Admin, and Customer Support had lower-than-average feelings of career satisfaction, according to their answers.
Female HR employees are far more satisfied with their careers than their male counterparts. Females from HR were happy with where their careers are at a rate about 10% higher than than male coworkers. A similar gap of 8 percentage points separates female IT workers from their less-satisfied male opposite numbers. Otherwise, in most departments, men and women showed similar rates of career satisfaction.
When responses are broken up into the age groups of the responding employees, we see a progression that makes some sense. Those starting out on their careers have a high level of satisfaction because it’s hard for them to feel like they’ve wasted any years or major opportunities. This number drops as we progress through our careers, second-guessing our choices and wondering if the grass really is greener. Then, around the start an employee’s fifties, satisfaction begins to creep in. Whether this has to do with older workers finally reaching career goals or simple being more forgiving (and achieving more piece of mind) as they age is unclear.
Latest reading as of December 17.
