What Makes A Job A Great Job

There are many recruiters who will call you and say, “I have a great job for you.”  When I was in advertising as an account guy, I used to get those calls a lot.  As a recruiter, I don't say that on a recruiting call because there are many good jobs, but few that are great. 

 

And besides, great jobs are a relative thing and very individual; what is great for one person may be less so for someone else. However there are elements which contribute to making a job great for most people.

I have given this a lot of thought and wanted to write about the elements which distinguish the great from the merely good.  These six elements are very personal and can vary from person to person. The confluence of all these elements must be there for a job to be great.

Culture

A company, in order to qualify as great, for me, has to have a defined culture.  Everyone must be moving in the same direction.  There has to be a system of beliefs, which comes from the very top down.  It can vary by company, but a true culture is one that is defined, believed and acted upon by everyone within the company. 

I remember one advertising agency where the HR director told me that they were building their culture and had free beer on Friday afternoons in their  lounge.  Free beer does not make a culture, but it is a nice perk. Free beer can be the manifestation of a culture, but in and of itself it is not a culture.

Culture must come from the top.  And it must be lived by all employees.  It should be manifest in the work, in the attitude and in the way that people interact with each other. 

I fully recognize that what is great for one person, may not be so for another.

People

People are critical to the equation.  The culture could, in fact be cutthroat or it could be nice, but the people have to reflect the attributes of the culture – excellence, creativity, passion and the desire to do good work, whatever the work is.  People must exude a sense of mission for the culture and for themselves.

I once worked at an agency which hired very bright people. I worked with three account supervisors (there were, maybe, eight at the agency) who went on to become agency presidents. I worked with art directors, writers, research people and media people who went on to become department heads and agency presidents.  It was a pleasure to work there because the people were bright, upwardly mobile and nice.

I you don't like the people, it cannot be a great job.

Opportunity

Of course, opportunity comes with growth.  As companies grow, their employees will have more opportunity.  But it also means a culture where people are allowed to succeed at what they do.  Failure is never an option, but the ability to try something new and not succeed is essential if there is to be opportunity.  Great cultures allow people the luxury to try to be innovative, smart and forward thinking.  People thrive in that atmosphere.

Visibility

Great jobs are visible.  Visible to management, visible to the community at large.  (I recently placed a director of social media at a telecom company.  She told me that within four months of starting, her phone did not stopped ringing from recruiters, other phone companies and ad agencies.)

Fun

Having a good time is essential.  You spend more time at work than you do at home.  Work cannot be drudgery.  I once worked for a head of account management who periodically ordered pizza for everyone and who, once or twice a year, took all the available account people to the movies during lunch.  These things created a bond among everyone.  We worked hard, but we also played hard.

And the sense of fun created a cooperation among us all.  I could walk into any other account person’s office and bounce an issue or problem off of him or her.  It helped me to succeed.

The Work

It doesn’t matter what your company does –  making widgets, the law, advertising – the work has to override everything.  I recently read Fred Goldberg’s wonderful book, “The Insanity of Advertising” and he talks about being in the business for fifteen years and then going to Chiat/Day.  He discovered, for the first time, what advertising was all about.  The work came first at Chiat.

In the case of visibility, previously mentioned, the social media person received those calls because the work she is doing is great work and talked about throughout the telecom business, the social media community and the advertising business.

When every employee believes in the work, the job becomes more fun, the culture is defined and the people are all moving in the same direction.