People look for different things in a job: one person might want to change the world, while another just wants a paycheck. Research shows that matching your work personality to the culture of the organization is one of the prime factors in workplace happiness. Because most postdocs haven't had experience in non-academic environments, they may be surprised by the diversity of workplace cultures outside of academia.
For the past two years I've offered an online assessment of workplace personalities based on Tamara Ericson's "archtypes of work-related passions" (see /personality). This self-assessment has been completed by over twenty thousand participants, and is a component of workshops presented at Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, Brown, Santa Barbara, Davis, Madison, Michigan, Irvine and other leading institutions. This poster presents the data from thousands of grad students and postdocs who have taken the assessment and examines differences in workplace expectations by education, sex, and discipline. One striking result is that postbac men are opting for workplaces with a traditional academic structure, while women are looking for organizations that emphasize teamwork and work-life balance.
