Pessimism, Choosing or Changing Careers, and Job Satisfaction

What expectations do you have in choosing a particular career, changing careers, or in life, for that matter? Alain de Botton's video about pessimism may put things in perspective - and make you more cheerful.  De Botton is a writer/public speaker who has been described as a "philosopher of everyday life." In this video, he talks about the over-romanticizing of work (and life) and the pitfalls of viewing everything through an optimistic lens.

Our 6 Principles of the Free Agent Worker complement some of his ideas in that we clearly say, "work is labor for pay."  Not very romantic, but sometimes you need to be realistic about what work truly is to achieve greater job satisfaction. Do you agree?


Alain de Botton - On Pessimism from The School of Life on Vimeo.

United Kingdom Career Information at The Career Key

Thanks to input from our new customer British Airways, we've created a special career information page for all United Kingdom visitors to The Career Key website. We've put together a list of recommended links* to United Kingdom specific career and occupational information. This includes UK specific:

• job profiles and duties,
• education requirements, 
• salary; and 
• job outlook.  

 We also have portals to career information sites in Wales and Scotland.
So once you've matched your personality with careers using The Career Key test, you can now look up UK specific information about the occupations that interest you. Click on "United Kingdom" at the bottom of The Career Key home page.  You already have the ability to see matching Canadian careers and occupational information, in addition to the U.S. information available during The Career Key test.


This has been a long time coming - it's a relatively recent development that the UK government has made occupational information available online.


*The Career Key does not accept advertising or paid links. We only recommend and link to sites we think provide the greatest benefit and most objective information to our visitors.