What Are the Most Fulfilling Careers?

What are the most fulfilling careers? While our culture may have us thinking we need to be a CEO or a celebrity fashion designer to experience career satisfaction, a new poll out says that answer lies not only in what kind of work we do, or even how much we earn, but whether we work in jobs that meet our motives for working.

The results of a Wall Street Journal's Career Journal Online poll show the top attributes that individuals seek in their careers are:

• Good intellectual stimulation
• Strong job security
• A high level of control and freedom in what to do
• Extensive direct contact with customers/clients

The Journal, working with Harris Interactive, queried people who consider themselves career focused, and then named the job factors that that these individuals credit for contributing to their career fulfillment. Then, analysts surveyed occupational data and employment projections from the Department of Labor and interviewed experts to identify occupations that match these job-satisfaction factors.

So, what's most important to you? Intellectual challenge? Or, perhaps you most value making a difference in someone's life by helping them overcome a learning disability. According to poll research, the top jobs that contribute to a high sense of career fulfillment are:

• Curriculum and instructional coordinators
• High-school special-education teachers
• Hospital and clinic managers
• Management consultants and analysts
• Medical researchers
• Physical therapists
• Sales, marketing and advertising managers
• Social workers, counselors and related managers

As the report notes, these won't be the best careers for everyone. But relative to others, they are more likely to a high level of one of the satisfaction factors, like intellectual challenge, job security or autonomy, that mark fulfilling careers.

This type of information is valuable at giving us insight into why we work, what we do and don't like about our jobs, and how we might redirect our careers to experience greater satisfaction. And if regular hours are important, forget being a funeral director along with the systems administrator and news reporter jobs. In fact, the article points out, jobs with predictable hours are on the wane, but if it is work and family balance you are seeking, teaching jobs standout as providing family-friendly careers.

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