Life – a user's manual Part II - Boksidan

An important question to ask yourself before your entrance into the labor market is: what do I mainly want
to get out of my work There are a number of common ways of reasoning about this, tentatively:
A. It does not matter what I'm working with right now, because I just wants to make money.
B. I want a job that gives me prestige among those that I want to be with (for example, by title, salary or by
the nature of the work).
For anyone who recognizes himself most in alternative A, it might be just enough to study the wage
statistics, see, for example, Statistics Sweden (SCB, 2003), or www.lonestatistik.se), for suitable jobs and
then seek work from top to bottom on the list. One advantage with this approach (in addition to salary) is
that it eliminates all the speculation about which occupations fits ones personality. A risk with the approach,
however, is that it may result in that the person gets stuck in a career that he/she does not feel comfortable
with, but "cant" change because he/she has adapted the life situation after the relatively good incomes.
For those who instead recognize themselves most in option B, it is a good strategy to ask: what the prestige
values are for the jobs that it would be possible to get And also then look from the top down, with virtually
the same benefits and risks as above.
But someone who wants to get something else out of their future work, might benefit from reading further in
this paper.
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