Last week I opened up the grill on our back deck at home with the intention of firing up some hamburgers. When I opened up the grill, I was shocked to find that the neighborhood birds had targeted it for their next home. The grill was filled with twigs, grass, and debris from all over the neighborhood. Luckily, there weren’t any eggs or birds in there, but this forced me to spend some time cleaning out the grill and cook the burgers in the house.

As I reluctantly cooked dinner for my wife and myself on the George Foreman Grill in the kitchen, it got me thinking. The birds chose my grill for their next home. What prompted them to select my grill? What separated my grill from other locations in the neighborhood? We have plenty of trees, my other neighbors have grills – why my grill on my back porch? 

That thought gave me an idea for my first blog entry. I decided to look back at 100 random interviews that I’ve done in the last year with candidates looking to take the next step in their careers. My goal was to track their number one job consideration and really try to get to the bottom of what people are looking for in their next opportunity.

In the executive division of Aureus Group, we work with companies that have $100K+ vacancies within its teams, and we work with companies nationally.  I do a great deal of work with actuaries, bankers, finance, accounting , audit , tax, and investments professionals, so this could be considered a small sample of a broad functional array of people from coast to coast, all of whom are or were interested in evaluating other opportunities.

After compiling the numbers, the results were a bit surprising. I expected company culture to be the number one driver, but it wasn’t. I expected company leadership to be high on the list but it fell all the way to the bottom. This is what my data tells us:

1) 34% – Job Responsibilities – Candidates want to find a role that will allow them, on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis, to be challenged and add value. Candidates are looking for positions that will allow them to lean on their experiences and exposures to take a company to the next level. Also, in many cases, they seek a role that will position them for projects that they’re not getting in their current jobs.

2) 20% – Personal Professional Growth – People are taking jobs today and, in the process, are looking forward 5 -10 years. They’re asking the question – “does this role position me for growth within the organization?”

3) 16% – Company Success – More and more, candidates are diving into companies’ financial statements, pouring through earnings calls, and checking Google news histories, all to learn more about companies. Candidates want to work for organizations that are positioned to outperform its competitors. 

4) 14% – Culture – I was surprised to see culture fall this low on the list. With companies investing so much money into culture, I expected to see it in one of the top spots. Still, though, this is a key driver. Candidates that I had talked with had listed honesty, openness, transparency, and collaboration as aspects of culture that were most important.

5) 8% – Money – I found it interesting that of all of the candidates I interviewed who listed this as their top job consideration, they are ALL still in their original roles. There are circumstances where employees are underpaid and they’re looking to get fair value for their services, but generally it’s tough to make a career move just for the money.

6) 6% – Location - The fact that this was so low on the list was not surprising to me. Our division works nationally with companies that are willing to search the country for impact players. On the flip side, the best candidates in the country seem to be willing to look nationally for great opportunities. I can’t tell you how many people call us a year after moving to another city and thank us for urging them to evaluate the opportunity and investigate the city rather than dismissing a job opening because it’s not within 30 minutes of their home.

7) 2% – Leadership – This really surprised me. Clearly this factor is important, but to the candidates I interviewed it was not their top consideration.

These results, while interesting, are only a small sample of all the candidates that Aureus Group has worked with and are a needle in the haystack of workers around the country. Each job seeker has their own wish list. That being said, it seems that people really want to find a role that will allow them to be challenged, add value, and grow professionally. These factors are all things that exist within the mind of the candidate; they’re factors that can only be discovered by spending time digging deep with the candidate.

Also, determining if these things will be available to a candidate within any given company can only be determined by spending time with the company. A job description only tells you so much and a resume only tells you so much.

If I was working with the birds in my neighborhood in their search for a new home I would have obviously advised them to take my grill off of their list of potential destinations. Obviously that decision didn’t work out for them – they made a bad choice.

Aureus Group adds value as an organization because of our understanding of the people that we represent and our comfort level with the companies that hire us. We can help to make that match because it’s our area of specialization as an organization. Great hiring decisions are made when a candidate is brought on board whose skill set and career trajectory aligns with a company’s goals and direction. If you’re a candidate looking for a new position, take the time to really think about what it is that’s important to you. Crystallizing that ideal next step will help to ensure that your next job feels like home.

Jeff Kovar, Aureus Group Executive Recruiter

About Jeff Kovar
Jeff has been with the Aureus Executive Search team since September 2008 and in the recruiting business since April 2007. Prior to entering the recruiting world, he worked for five years in the corporate currency exchange business. He specializes in working with $100K+ candidates in the actuarial, financial, accounting, banking, and many other functional areas from coast to coast. Jeff enjoys golfing, watching Nebraska football, spending time with his wife Jenny and jogging with their two labs – Freddy and Cali.