Why Aren’t Philadelphians Aiming for the Corner Office?
A new LinkedIn study sheds some light on our career goals for 2018.
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LinkedIn started off the New Year by looking at how professionals across its platform view success. For example, is getting the corner office everyone’s goal or has the side hustle taken precedence as a marker of achievement?
The company polled about 2,000 professionals in its network of about a half a billion people to determine how we look at success in 2018. The survey asked users questions like, why do you get up and go to work each day? What are you in it for? Here’s how Philadelphians answered these questions compared to everyone else.
PAYING THE BILLS
41 percent of Philadelphians don’t list being passionate about their job as a measure of success — instead they’re in it to pay the bills (68 percent). This motivation is helping to usher in the age of the Side Hustle, with more than one-third of Philadelphians today (35 percent) finding success by pursuing a passion project or side hustle.
SEEING THE WORLD
Success for many Philadelphians means experiences over salary – 28 percent would take a ten percent pay cut if they could travel the world.
BOSSING IT
The corner office is dead, the study finds. 98 percent of Philadelphians don’t care about this as a measure of success. Now it’s about being your own boss — more than one-quarter (26 percent) of Philadelphians say personal success means starting their own business. Particularly millennials — more than one-third (34 percent) prioritize entrepreneurship.
HONING SKILLS
An overwhelming majority of Philadelphians (87 percent) feel that skills are even more important than job titles — with “learning a new skill” ranking as the #1 career goal in 2018.
INSPIRING OTHERS
A majority (84 percent) of Philadelphians say success isn’t just about what you accomplish in your life, it’s about what you inspire others to do. Putting that feeling into action, nearly 2 in 5 (39 percent) Philadelphians feel most successful when teaching others.
PUTTING FAMILY FIRST
Nearly half of Philadelphians (47 percent) define success as spending time with family and disconnecting from work — this is more than double the number who define success as material wealth (20 percent).
To find out how everyone else defines success in 2018, view LinkedIn’s complete study here.
