Is your work-life balance out of kilter? Are there days when you could you happily throw your job out the window? Are you undervalued, underpaid and overworked?

There’s nothing dreamy about having a job. In fact, nightmares are dreams too, and I have certainly heard some nightmare stories during my recruitment career.

So how can you change what you’re stuck with – your job – into something much more fulfilling – your dream job?

Assuming you’re not in a position to consider a complete career change (a subject for another blog post), your best option is to look for the same job in a different organisation. So how do you avoid going from the frying pan into the fire?

It’s often easier to talk about what you DON’T want but harder to describe what you DO want. Daydreaming is a good place to start, as psychologist Susan Bernstein suggests, but take your daydreaming seriously. Try stretching your thought processes out from your ideal job title to describing the function you really enjoy performing in an environment you would particularly thrive in.

Ask yourself these questions:

• What makes you feel good about your job?
• What part of your job do you like?
• Do you like the people you are working with?
• Do you feel valued by your employer?

Once you have your answers, it’s important to understand why you feel this way.

It’s likely that your answers to the first two questions will tell you what you’re really good at - because this will be the part of the job you enjoy the most and what makes you feel good.

The next two questions will help you determine the ethos and type of organisation you would like to work in - the kinds of people you would like to work alongside and how you would like your employer to value and recognise your contribution.

Apply these criteria when considering a new position and you’ll be on your way to determining the difference between your next job into your dream job.

For more inspiration on matching your job to your desires, “Success” Should Not Mean “Management” is a great article with lots of food for thought, and What’s the Essence of What You Want is an inspirational piece from “Occupational Adventurer” Curt Rosengren.

Before I started my own business I had found my dream job. My title was PA to the Managing Director for the major manufacturing division of a multi-national organisation. Working closely with senior management, I was also involved in many aspects of forecasting and strategic planning issues, performance management, professional development and HR issues, and quality assurance. I organised many events and conferences working to a budget in excess of $100K. Our enormous export business required me to organise and host many visits from overseas clients and my opinion was sought on many other areas of the business.

This was surely a dream job for a career-minded PA, right? But if I told you that this job was in a brick factory, where I had to regularly clear the brickdust from my desk and negotiate my car around the potholes in the driveway to get to my office, you might re-think.

So what was it about this job that made it a dream job for me and kept me there for nine years? It certainly wasn’t the physical working environment.

Every year was a growth year for me professionally. I worked alongside the most amazingly committed group of people all working to make the business successful and in an organisation that recognised and valued their people.

Oh and by the way, my boss regularly thanked me for my contribution. Even after the most stressful of days, I would drive home feeling good!

A ‘dream job’ comes in all guises – learn to recognise what makes you tick and then go out and find it.

Dream =

Vision – daydream, nightmare, hallucination, delusion, trance
Fantasy – pipe dream, castle in the sky
Aspiration – wish, goal, hope