The Job Hunt.

Something obvious occurred to me. The point of any job hunt is to find a new local maximum.

Here's the claim: With each job and payrate, there's a certain set-point of happiness that the job returns to. Get a pay raise, and that set point goes up -- but less than we'd like to think.

But, get a job doing something you find more important, or just more rewarding, and the set point goes up a lot.

And here's when you should change jobs: When the set point for your current job is considerably lower than where you want to be.

I've got a chart for that. This chart shows the original happiness at a job, and what happens when reality hits. A pay raise goes along with increase in happiness, as does additional responsibilities.

Here's the problem: At least in this example, the happiness increases in the position have failed to keep up with the desired satisfaction.

There are two ways out of this: change a job or lower expectations.

Which do you think should happen?