Finding Purpose: Why you should stop chasing your “dream job” (w/ Emily the Recruiter)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Fixable — "Finding Purpose: Why you Should Stop Chasing Your ‘Dream Job’ (w/ Emily the Recruiter)"

Date: June 8, 2026
Host: Anne Morriss
Guest: Emily Durham (“Emily the Recruiter”)
Theme: Rethinking purpose, meaning, and the myth of the “dream job” in building a fulfilling career

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Episode Overview

This episode of Fixable explores the widespread career advice of “finding your passion” or “dream job,” and why these concepts can be problematic or even counterproductive in today’s work landscape. Anne Morriss is joined by Emily Durham—a candid, widely followed recruiter, podcaster, and author—to break down new frameworks for purposeful, sustainable work. They discuss why fulfillment seldom comes from work alone, how to find and balance purpose, validation, and lifestyle (“VPL”), and share practical strategies for anyone feeling stuck or searching for more meaning in their career—whether they’re early, mid, or late in their journey.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Trouble with “Find Your Passion” and the “Dream Job” Myth

[03:30 – 06:45]

• Emily explains why “find your passion” is bad career advice:

  “Telling people that we have to be passionate about work is basically telling people the most interesting thing about you is what you do Monday to Friday. And I think that’s really crummy.” — Emily Durham [03:45]

• The expectation that one’s job should provide all fulfillment sets people up for disappointment and diminishes other aspects of their lives.

• The problem with the “dream job” concept:

  • It places too much meaning on work.
  • It can trap people when the reality doesn’t align with the dream (“You can’t really get ahead in your career if your whole identity is tied to work.” [05:01])

2. Emily’s VPL Framework: Validation, Purpose, Lifestyle

[04:15 – 11:55]

• Inspired by “Jersey Shore’s” GTL, Emily’s “VPL” stands for:

  • Validation (recognition, feeling valued)
  • Purpose (doing meaningful work)
  • Lifestyle (the economic and logistical aspects of the job)

• Most jobs won’t meet all three; knowing your current stack helps you make better choices and pivot over time.

  “If you’ve got a job that meets your lifestyle... but you feel like there’s no purpose and your boss doesn’t validate you, treats you really crummy, you’re going to hate that job.” — Emily Durham [04:37]

3. The “Awake Job” vs. “Dream Job”

[07:18 – 08:51]

• Emily advocates for pursuing an “awake job”:
  • An “awake job” means seeing work with clear eyes—without the rosy lens of infatuation, understanding its limits, and creating a life around work.
  • This perspective defends against overattachment and burnout.

  “When you frame your work as one part of your life versus your whole life, you’re actually going to get a lot further.” — Emily Durham [08:51]

4. Purpose, Passion, and Validation in Personal Careers

[09:20 – 11:55]

• Emily’s own journey: driven by experimentation, enjoying moments of impact more than traditional markers of success.
  • Purpose is her highest motivator now; lifestyle is lowest (but this may change: “give yourself permission to shuffle them a little bit.” [11:35])
• Tip: Find micro-doses of purpose and validation in your week—don’t rely solely on your main job.

5. Early-Career Guidance: Exploring Meaning Without Overcommitment

[12:51 – 15:36]

• Don’t stress if you don’t have the answers early on—early career is a “period of discovery.”

• Purpose can come from team, customers, mission, or small alignments (“sometimes, the meaning and purpose is just great coworkers who also love animals”). [13:33]

• In a tough job market, be pragmatic about getting a foot in the door—even if the job isn’t perfect.

• Macro vs. Micro Moments: Clarify what you need (mission, people, daily tasks) and pay attention to both.

6. Mid-to-Late Career Pivoting for More Purpose

[21:50 – 25:56]

• If you’re ‘checking boxes’ on lifestyle and validation but feel empty, explore:
  • Can you expand your purpose within your current job (e.g. mentoring, leading initiatives)?
  • If not, look externally (volunteering, new roles, creative side projects).

  “When we start to think of our career as a part of a pizza pie instead of like the whole deep dish, you start to realize there’s a lot more options.” — Emily Durham [25:47]

7. How to Quit a Job Gracefully

[26:13 – 29:38]

• Only quit when you have another offer in writing or a financial safety net.
• Book a one-on-one with your boss, express appreciation, be honest about an external offer, and negotiate if interested.
• Operate with “the audacity of someone who is unaware the answer could be no.” [28:38]

  “There is someone grossly underqualified, arguably bad at their job, getting a raise every single year. And you want to know why? Because they’re dumb enough to ask.” — Emily Durham [28:38]

8. Generational Differences and New Attitudes Toward Work

[29:52 – 31:35]

• Gen Z’s approach: Less blind loyalty, more skeptical, piecing together meaning from multiple sources (side hustles, etc.).

  “Gen Z sees through the corporate fluff so quickly. Their rose-colored glasses... aren’t even in the shelf.” — Emily Durham [30:27]

9. Listener Q&A Highlights

a) Sarah, Disillusioned Therapist

[33:50 – 40:17]

• Advice: Burnout comes in different forms—workload, toxic environment, or misfit. Identify which is causing pain using “micro-moment” reflection.
• Therapy & education create highly transferable skills for other domains: user experience, tech, consulting, adult learning.
• “You are not stuck... Give yourself a chance to breathe and grieve because all the feelings you’re feeling are going to make things feel a lot more gray than they are.” — Emily Durham [37:10]

b) Kayleigh, Recent Graduate

[40:28 – 43:19]

• How to talk values in interviews: Integrate your values subtly via LinkedIn, interview answers, and questions.
• Be aware recruiters “are there to sell” and supplement with research (Glassdoor, current employees).

10. Coping with Today’s Job Market and Uncertainty

[43:58 – 46:38]

• “It’s not you, it’s the market.” Don’t blame yourself.
• Tweak your job search strategy to the times, lean into your network, and remember: “There are no rules left to play. All that matters is you are happy with your life and the lights are on.” — Emily Durham [46:17]

11. Final Practical Tips

[47:50 – 48:15]

• Weekly challenge:

  “Write down in a full sentence the moment in work this week that makes you feel most alive and just figure out how you can double it... It’s allowed to be that, too.” — Emily Durham [47:50]

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Memorable Quotes

• “Operate with the confidence of the most mediocre white man you have ever encountered.” — Emily Durham [29:01]

• “Think about your career like a business, not like a career.” — Emily Durham [46:03]

• “You are not stuck. You are almost never stuck.” — Emily Durham [39:43]

• “Gen Z’s purpose is coming from a sense of their internal needs versus work exclusively.” — Emily Durham [31:20]

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Notable Moments & Timestamps

• VPL Framework Explained: [04:15–05:49]
• Why Dream Job Is a Trap: [05:49–06:45]
• Awake Job vs Dream Job: [07:18–08:51]
• Early to Mid-Career Advice: [12:51–15:36]
• Micro-Moments to Diagnose Burnout: [35:08–39:43]
• How and When to Quit: [26:13–29:38]
• Gen Z Work Attitudes: [29:52–31:35]
• Actionable Pep Talk for Job Seekers: [43:58–46:38]
• Weekly Purpose Challenge: [47:50–48:15]

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Tone and Language

The episode is energizing yet pragmatic, blending tough love with empathy. Emily is direct, funny, supportive, and deeply encouraging, using real talk and tangible examples; Anne keeps the conversation insightful and accessible.

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For Further Engagement

• Follow Emily: @emilytherecruiter (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube)
• Podcast & Book:
  • “Clock In” (podcast)
  • Clock In: No BS Advice for Getting Ahead in Your Career Without Losing Your Mind (book)

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Bottom Line:

Don’t chase dreams sold by others—create purposeful work by knowing what you need, detaching self-worth from your job, and regularly recalibrating your own stack of validation, purpose, and lifestyle. There is always another way to find meaning—even (especially) when the current story isn’t working.

Transcript

[Ann Morris]

Hey listeners, we want your questions. Are you early in your career and trying to find meaning in the job hunt? Are you looking back on years in one industry and wondering if you found your life's work yet or if you might have missed it when thinking about your purpose and how it ties to your career? Whatever's on your mind, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions by emailing fixableed.com and we'll deliver you answers in a special series coming soon.

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Emily Durham]

This episode is brought to you by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi agentic AI. They already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping using self reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks. It doesn't just help buyers find a car they love, it helps schedule a test drive, get pre approved for financing and estimate trade in value. Advanced, intuitive and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One. I think we all need to start operating rather with the audacity of someone who is unaware that the answer could be no. Like my biggest piece of advice is there is someone grossly under qualified, arguably bad at their job, getting a raise every single year. And you want to know why? Because they're dumb enough to ask.

[Ann Morris]

This is Fixable. A show where we take the problems at work that feel unfixable and prove that they're not. I'm Ann Morris and we are back with another installment of our Purpose at Work series. Today we're getting down to the brass tacks of how to find purposeful work and how to build a meaningful career that's connected to your purpose. Our guest today is someone who spent years in the trenches of hiring. You may know her as Emily, the recruiter on social media, where she shares practical, refreshingly honest career advice with Millions of followers. Emily Durham has decoded the recruiting process from every possible angle. She's worked inside companies on the recruiting side. She's helped the job seekers knocking on the door to figure out the process. She's coached people through the biggest professional decisions of their lives. She's also the author of the fantastic new book Clock no BS Advice for Getting Ahead in youn Career Without Losing youg Mind. I love her voice and her work and I'm thrilled to welcome Emily to the show today. Emily Durham, welcome to Fixable.

[Emily Durham]

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.

[Ann Morris]

Very mutual. Congrats on your terrific new book.

[Emily Durham]

Thank you.

[Ann Morris]

I loved it. So this month on the show, we are tackling this question of purpose and how to find meaning at work. You've written that find your passion is terrible career advice. So what is wrong with passion, Emily?

[Emily Durham]

Ah, well, here's the thing. If you are one of the lucky few who find passion and all of your other needs met with work, oh my God, I'd love that for you. Like, that's the ideal state. But I think telling people that we have to be passionate about work is basically telling people the most interesting thing about you is what you do Monday to Friday. And I think that's really crummy. I think, you know, the way that we, we talk about work and fulfillment has not really adjusted with the way the world has changed around us. And one of the things I talk a lot about in my book is this Jersey Shore style metaphor or acronym rather called VPL in lieu of gtl. And VPL really stands your validation, your purpose and your lifestyle. And I really think those are the three core needs that we need to meet with work. Because if you've got a job that meets your lifestyle, maybe the pay is fantastic, but you feel like there's no purpose and your boss doesn't validate you, treats you really crummy, you're going to hate that job sooner than later. So in lieu of chasing passion, I think we should create a life that hits our vpl, a life that we are passionate about. And at certain stages, you know, work fits into that and sometimes it doesn't, and that's okay.

[Ann Morris]

So the V I love your VPL framework and purpose is there in the stack. You're just saying, if I'm hearing you correctly, these other two things also matter. Why are these distinctions important for people to really think about?

[Emily Durham]

I think, you know, the purpose is definitely in there, but the goal that we've kind of been raised with is we need to Find that validation, that purpose, that lifestyle exclusively through work. My push is let's look at the entirety of our lives and see how work is one of those contributing factors. Because in a world like today, where companies we used to trust are now laying folks off with 6am Cold emails, if all of our VPL or all of our purpose comes from work, it's even more disturbing when we get that taken away from us or when our, you know, employment situation can shift and change. So it's really about creating stability in as many pots as possible.

[Ann Morris]

And then is this the same reason you're skeptical of a dream job?

[Emily Durham]

I think so. I am. And again, if you're someone where it's like, listen, I'm working my dream job, I'm passionate about everything, goodness gracious, I could not love that for you more than I do. But telling people that we need to hunt for a dream job again is tying our meaning to work. And I'm a firm believer you can't really get ahead in your career if your whole identity is tied to work. When we dream of a job, we're telling ourselves like, that's the best it's ever getting. And if you get the dream job and suddenly you're not great at it, or your boss kind of sucks, or the job is Chang, you're going to force yourself to make it work because you went to school all those years to get the job and you told your friends you had the swanky title. So I think detaching from the notion of this dream job and focusing on what does my ideal life look like and how does work fit into that gives us permission to pivot. Because you're going to go through phases where work is number one. And sometimes you're going to go through phases where work is maybe number four on the importance list here.

[Ann Morris]

And to your point, it also deepens our resilience when we're not getting everything we dreamed of getting from work. It allows us to move through those setbacks more gracefully.

[Emily Durham]

Yes, I kind of joke that you need to have, you know, a life that you really like to remind yourself you're not just an employee. Like the amount of times I've used to come home from work on a Monday and be like, well, that's it. I'm going to make dinner and I'm going to think about work all day. That's a really unhealthy attachment to the careers we have versus a life that is a little bit more robust. And creating these moments where we find purpose outside of our nine to fives

[Ann Morris]

instead of a dream job. You argue that we should be pursuing an awake job. So talk to me about the awake job.

[Emily Durham]

Yes, I would argue the awake job is us taking off the rose colored glasses. Because when you are in love with your job and it's your dream job and the best thing that's ever happened, when your boss asks you to work overtime and skip your best friend's birthday dinner, you're probably going to do that. When you get some negative feedback, you're probably going to cry about that. You're going to get those Sunday scaries a little heavier than usual. But when we shift it to the awake job, which is this, this job is actively fitting into my validation, my purpose and my lifestyle. It is fulfilling my financial needs, my emotional needs. You've taken off the rose colored glasses. You remember it's just a job. You know, the positive feedback that your boss gives you is a compliment and that's great, but it doesn't determine your value as a person. So therefore the negative feedback doesn't either. So I encourage people to take off those rose colored glasses, look at work for what it is, which is frankly a contract for you to fulfill services and create a life surrounding work so that work doesn't become everything.

[Ann Morris]

I, I'm getting this like beautiful mama bear protective energy from you. You just want to send us out in the world with like the, the narratives about ourselves and the kind of realism and the, and whatever the opposite of rose colored glasses are to just, just deal with the world of work with more realism and confidence and clear expectations. Is that, is that a reasonable summary of your purpose?

[Emily Durham]

I would love to get that tattooed on my skin. That was beautiful. I would say so, like my purpose isn't to discourage folks from being highly ambitious and wanting the next thing that is beautiful. What I'm pushing folks to think about is how when you frame your work as one part of your life versus your whole life, you're actually going to get a lot further. So if I define my purpose, it really is just equipping people with the confidence and the tools to get ahead head without it being something that keeps you up at night. Because God, does that feeling suck.

[Ann Morris]

How has your own purpose evolved over time? Like, I'm curious when you first got in touch with the clarity around the impact you wanted to go out and have in the world.

[Emily Durham]

A lot of it was through experimentation. And I'm such a big proponent of saying yes to the things that kind of scare you. You'll filter out some stuff you never want to do again. And then you'll filter in things where you're like, okay, I could do this. But I worked in recruitment in house for years, and one of the major roles that I had was focusing on early career talent. So at the time, that was interns and co ops. And what really sparked, like, this sense of deeper purpose where I was really fulfilled, although I was incredibly overworked, which is kind of what pointed to how much I loved it, was really being the person to be able to give someone the behind the scenes of, I know you've got an interview tomorrow. Can you just make sure you ask for a little more money than you plan to, or, you know, here's what actually needs to get done for you to get the job. And so seeing how the real impacts of that, you know, was able to get candidates kind of through the process, get them into the role that changed their careers, that just really sparked this fire in me that I wanted to do at scale and fast forward six odd years later, and that's kind of become the crux of what I do today.

[Ann Morris]

Fire is dangerously close to passion. Emily, just to. Just to warn you, it is, it is.

[Emily Durham]

And the beauty is like, I'm super passionate about my work, but I'm just as passionate about really good walks on the beach with my dog. So when I'm having a crummy work day, I okay, putting this down. I'm gonna go do something else that fills me up. I'm gonna go watch the Real Housewives of Rhode island and I'm gonna take my dog on a walk.

[Ann Morris]

Yep. So where is purpose in your own VPL stack today?

[Emily Durham]

Ooh, I love this. For me personally, I would say lifestyle is my lowest, purpose is my highest, and validation is in the middle, which was a little bit hard to kind of think through, because validation, when you hear that, you think, well, I don't need validation from work. But the reality is, like, we all do.

[Ann Morris]

It's really nice to be desperate for validation.

[Emily Durham]

It's the best. There's nothing better than someone saying, wow, that really helped, or, wow, that was great, or, you know, all of those things really matter. So for me, purpose, seeing the tangible outcomes of helping people get connected to work that matters to them, that's what fills me up. Secondary to that, it's the validation. I love going to a conference and someone saying, that was a great talk. Lifestyle for me is kind of third. Like, I'm at a stage in my life, I have no dependence. I'm cool to work a little bit extra If I have to commute a little longer, that's fine. But I anticipate as my life changes, like those letters are going to jumble up. That's why it's so important to know how they stack now. So you give yourself permission to shuffle them a little bit.

[Ann Morris]

You know, when I was a young pup, I was very clear that my number one driver was purpose and meaningful work. Where should I'm hearing you that that Ann, don't put all your chips on the gig. But that was my number one focus. What other coaching would you give me in that moment as I was setting out to the world of work for the first time?

[Emily Durham]

I would ask you, you know, if all if a lot of your driving love and passion and excitement is into work, I'd love to hear why. Like, what is the outcome that feels really meaningful? Is it helping people? Is it the connection? Like, I would ask you what the source of that is and ask you then, what other places in your life do you get even micro doses of that and how can you do 5% more of that this week? Like, I'm not saying overhaul your life, so step away from work. I'm just saying if you have a really crummy day, where can you get that hit somewhere else so that you kind of are a bit more predictable in terms of how we feel during those down seasons?

[Ann Morris]

I love it. I love it. Let's say I'm early in my career. Go back to the kind of young pup metaphor. I'm just starting out. I don't know exactly what I want, but I know that I want work to be meaningful. Let's say I have like a suspicion. I love animals. I'm passionate about like cross species relationships. What coaching would you give me to like just start to find my way through this crazy world of work?

[Emily Durham]

Oh, the first thing I would tell you is how exciting that you don't know. That means you get to discover for the next little bit, like what an exciting period. So don't beat yourself up for not having the answers you're not supposed to. Right? And I would also remind you that your meaning and your purpose can come in a bunch of different places. Sometimes the meaning and purpose is just great coworker workers who also love animals. Sometimes it's the customers that you deal with, sometimes it's your boss, sometimes it's the company itself. So remember that your purpose doesn't have to be specifically working. Let's say at an animal rescue. It might be a company where their corporate social responsibility is giving back to wildlife and that hit scratches your itch. So keep an open mind. But if I was very early in my career, specifically in this job market, I would just focus on finding a role that gets you in the door, even if it's imperfect. And then let's put those purpose chips somewhere. El, I know that sounds incredibly pessimistic, but the reality is the job search right now is rough. Let's keep our options open.

[Ann Morris]

I love that you underlined working with a team or collaboration as something that can fit into purpose for people. I feel like we think about purpose traditionally in this very narrow way where you know, I want to go and change this about the world. I love that for people. I loved that for myself. It was a, it was a deep source of meaning for me. I can imagine how this fits into some of your frameworks, but they're top down value. Like I was passionate about global health, I was passionate about democracy, I was passionate about entrepreneurship, like helping people start businesses in environments where that was difficult. All those, those, those mission, those high level missions meant a lot to me. What a brutal insight in my own life was that that was not enough. I also, my daily experience of going to work also mattered tremendously to my level of engagement and satisfaction. What was I literally doing when I came to, like, who was I talking to? What, what was the activity? Was I doing with other people? Was I doing it by myself? All those things were just as important, if not more. This was the dirty little secret, if not more than this top down mission. And I'm wondering how you see that kind of friction show up in your work and how you coach people through it.

[Emily Durham]

It's really difficult and I think those are the things you only really recognize when you're in the moment being like, okay, something's feeling off and where is that coming from? I think it's really important when you are experiencing resistance at work and in your career where something is feeling off, spend the time. Sometimes it's just 15 minutes and I'm talking no music, no distractions, just bullet note. What am I feeling? I'm feeling isolated. I'm feeling like, you know, my team either doesn't exist or doesn't have my back. And I think the, the way that we think about dream jobs is so tied to the work in the company that we forget all of the little accoutrements. It's the people, it's the, you know, what is the lifestyle associated with this work? How does this work make me feel? So sitting down with yourself and really bullet pointing out what am I feeling and where is this coming from? To specifically name these things is so important. But I also think it's important to ask yourself, in my ideal life, what are the things that would satisfy me and go into very, very, very specific detail. Everything from the mission of the work that you do, so that top level stuff all the way down to what time do you roll into the office? Is there an office? Are there co workers, how many, you know, what city are we operating within? And when you look at your pie in the sky ideal life, you're going to immediately see, oh, wait, I am so far off from what actually fills me up. Something's got to give. And it's interesting. In my own career, I also thought I was very mission driven by the work itself. The reality is I couldn't find a job in what I was targeting. Right. No one was hiring me into an employment law firm when that was not even my major. I ended up taking a job at a big bank. I was like, this work doesn't feel meaningful. Or I'm in investment banking. It's money, money, money. But where I ended up kind of sitting with myself and finding that purpose was I. On the individual level, I had a really great boss, I had really good teams, I had great employee resource groups. So I shifted that meaning temporarily until I later found work that scratched kind of both of those itches. But sitting with yourself to think about the macro and the micro is so important because over time your needs are going to change and the busier that life gets. Sometimes you care a little bit less about the macro mission of the company and care a little bit more about the person you speak to six hours a day in the office.

[Ann Morris]

Yeah. And I love your guidance to pay attention to your own emotions as data to inform some of these questions. The advice I sometimes give people is pay attention to what's really weird about you. Like what do you like to do that none of your peers like to do? Like what? Because so much of our behavior is socially influenced and so when we really use some of those, like emotional tokens to do something really different from the crowd, I think there's also a lot of data in those choices as well.

[Emily Durham]

I love finding your weird. I think that's. It's incredible. It's. And that ends up being like your superpower at work.

[Ann Morris]

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[Emily Durham]

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[Ann Morris]

Many of our listeners are mid career or even later. They've checked the box on the V and the L kind of where you are in some ways it sounds like, and they now they really want to lean into purpose. What advice would you give them on navigating that pivot?

[Emily Durham]

Yeah, I think there's two things to think about in this. So the first is, is it possible to get that purpose in your current job? And if I'm assuming we're happy in our current jobs, by the way, just because we've hit two of the three, we're restless, we're okay, we're ready for the next thing.

[Ann Morris]

We're ready for the next thing.

[Emily Durham]

I love that. So I think this is the first question, can I get that purpose in this job? That might mean, and for many of us it means joining an employee resource group in a position of leadership. Maybe you're joining like the Women Leadership Organization, a mentorship org. Maybe you're leading the corporate social responsibility. You'd be surprised how much that scratches the itch of, wow, I'm doing something. The power of mentoring someone, especially mid or late career, is one of the most rewarding things in the world. Seeing how you have built someone from early to confident is so important. That can be an incredible way to do this. Can your role expand? Can the clients that you serve expand? All of that is something worth asking. And a great way to do this is to first sit with yourself and think, in a perfect world, what could I get from this job that would take me to a happier place? If you do have an answer, speak to your boss. Have that conversation, frame it as, I'm looking to expand my purpose because I love working here. They're going to have your back if they're a great boss. And if they're not, well, then there's our answer. Let's find something else. So first thing is let's focus on the job at hand before you move

[Ann Morris]

on to the second one. I just want to underscore that because a lot of us come to work with a lot of our own security demons. And I see particularly late in career, just falling back on this habit of I need this job. For a lot of people it means safety, security, like a sense of well being, a sense of confidence in the future, deeply respect all of those things. But when you're at the point where you are getting restless because you want something more. It means you are willing to do, to make a different kind of, kind of risk, security, trade off, which is such an exciting moment in a life and a career. And this is the punchline where you have nothing to lose. Yes. Because you're already starting to fantasize about walking away. So before you do that, let's find out what other ways you might be able to get meaning from your current job.

[Emily Durham]

I love that. And I think, you know, there's often so much fear in saying like, well, I don't want my boss to think I'm not interested in my work. If you frame it around, that's old

[Ann Morris]

you, that's an old memory and old muscles around security.

[Emily Durham]

Yeah, exactly like that is our fear based reaction. If you frame this as I'm looking to expand my purpose because I love this work, you're gonna be fine. There's something to be said for security. And I'm not saying we never leave our jobs. Because option two is, let's say you have this conversation with your boss and you're like, I'm not getting what I need here. Or maybe the company you're at makes this pretty impossible. That's when you have kind of two routes you can take. Route number one, maybe you start applying for jobs that are a bit more aligned to what you're looking for. Perhaps it is some of their social responsibility initiatives, the mission of the company, perhaps the customers that they serve. You know, you go that job search path. But there's a third path that sometimes we forget about. Let's say your current job is not going to give you what you need. Where can you volunteer? Where can we take it outside of work? And this is where I think about, you know, that restlessness, that purpose. It's about the sum of our life, not just work itself. How can you go mentor someone outside of work, volunteer even, you know, it might be creative endeavors like that is such an underrated means of satisfaction that you can or choose not to monetize. Both are options. So it doesn't need to be. I'm looking for something next. Let's quit my job. I think when we start to think of our career as a part of a pizza pie instead of like the whole deep dish, you start to realize there's a lot more options. Right? And then we, we get to play and have a bit more fun.

[Ann Morris]

All right, let's say I have done, I've followed your wise counsel, and I have reached a confident conclusion that I need to quit my job. So how do I skillfully walk away? What is Emily, the recruiter's advice on how to gracefully quit a job?

[Emily Durham]

Yes. And there is a wrong way to do this. So this is a great question to ask. So my personal perspective is, unless this job is causing meaningful impact and negative impact on your mental health and your wellness, please do not quit until you have something else lined up. This market is slow. I'm talking six, seven, eight, nine months to find a job unless you have financial cushion to do so. I'm a big believer in let's try to make this job work until we find something else. Just from a security perspective. But as far as the actual leaving this job, like let's say you've got an offer in hand or the the money to kind of fund this, the last thing you want to do is leave people on a sour note. So what you're going to do is book a one on one meeting with your boss. People say, never do this on a Monday, never do this on a Friday. Who cares? You're quitting. This is fine. Book it. When you find out that you're leaving this job, you only do this when there's an offer in hand. Never if it is verbal. Although verbal offers are legally binding, they are rarely honored. So unless you've got it in writing, friend, you've got nothing. You go into your boss, you book a 15 minute meeting, you call it Career Touch point. You do it right in the morning.

[Ann Morris]

Oh, Career Touchpoint. That's. They're gonna know.

[Emily Durham]

They're gonna know what's up. You sit down with them and you start off with the positives. I wanted to pull you in. Sorry for the last minute meeting. I absolutely have loved this work. Even if you haven't. You've been an incredible mentor. Even if they haven't. Right? Like we soften, we butter it up. You say, I wanted to let you know I have been approached by another company. You never say that you've applied, we've interviewed and I've been given an offer that would be really meaningful for my career. And this is where you have two powerful options. You can either say, the offer's great, here's the number, I would love to stay. Is there anything you can do to make me stay? That's one option. If you're open to staying there, if you're done, you don't want it, you say, I've been given an offer that's great for my career. It was impossible to say no to. I want to let you know I have signed the offer. And I want to work with you on what my roll off plan will be. And that's where you guys get to decide, you know, what's your, your tenure, how long are you staying, et cetera, et cetera. Typically it's two weeks, not much more than that. But you have the option to say, would pay me to stay friend, because let me see what you could do.

[Ann Morris]

I've heard some provocative data around differences between men and women approaching these conversations. What have you seen? And does your advice change here depending on the identity of the person you're advising?

[Emily Durham]

So, shockingly, I would say no, my advice doesn't change because I think we all need to start operating rather with the audacity of someone who, who is unaware that the answer could be no. Like, my biggest piece of advice is there is someone grossly underqualified, arguably bad at their job, getting a raise every single year. And you want to know why? Because they're dumb enough to ask.

[Ann Morris]

And there are demographic tendencies to that audacity.

[Emily Durham]

Oh, I always say operate with the, the confidence of the most mediocre white man you have ever encountered. And it really, like, it does hit. So, like, my advice is pretty, pretty simple for all folks because I also think, you know, regardless of gender identity, there's a lot of different factors that influence how confident we feel in these conversations. The reality is the worst thing they're going to say is no, and nothing changes. And, you know, you hear people talk about, well, what if they take my job offer away? That is a very, very rare occurrence. And if that is the case, they have just exposed they are a grossly toxic work environment. It doesn't feel like a blessing now, but it will very soon.

[Ann Morris]

Are you seeing any generational differences in terms of how people relate to purpose? There's a story out there that younger workers care more about meaning and purpose. And is that lining up with your experience?

[Emily Durham]

It's interesting, like, yes and no, which I feel as though is a crummy answer, but is my answer. So when I think of millennials, like elder millennials, and generations older than that, a lot of us were raised with purpose, at the forefront of our work work, but we were also raised under the guise of hustle culture. We're working those heavy hours was something to be really proud of. And in many ways it is. We've accomplished so much, but we've also now seen that the loyalty that we gave to companies isn't really giving us the return on investment we were told it would. So Gen Z has grown up seeing their like older siblings and their parents devote their lives to work and just to get laid off in a 6am cold email as all folks are sending these days. So Gen Z has a really different relationship to work and I've seen those studies which is so interesting that say you know Gen Z is very purpose driven which I agree. But I would argue Gen Z sees through the corporate fluff so quickly. Their rose colored glasses, they haven't even, they're not even in the shelf. They are unaware that those exist. They are not offering blind loyalty to companies, they are diversifying their streams of income. Their corporate trust is very low. So although they are incredibly purpose driven largely because they have non stop access to information about global atrocities and things that are happening around us, I think Gen Z's purpose is coming from a sense of their internal needs versus work exclusively. And what I mean by that is Gen Z looks at their career as a business, not as a linear career. They're looking at a 9 to 5 but many of them have struggled to find work so they've got like a part time, a 9 to 5 a side hustle. The purpose comes from the sum of those so they're an incredible generation. I hate all of the Gen Z slander. I think their approach to work is fabulous.

[Ann Morris]

I couldn't agree more. And I think they're going to make all of us better in the workplace.

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[Emily Durham]

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[Ann Morris]

So I'd love to play a few questions from our listeners who are deep in a lot of these questions and I'd love to get your take on them.

[Emily Durham]

Oh, I would love that.

[Ann Morris]

All right. This first question breaks my heart.

[Emily Durham]

My name is Sarah. I am a psychotherapist in private practice and just reached a wall of disillusionment about this field.

[Ann Morris]

I have nothing but respect and honor

[Emily Durham]

and gratitude for the heart of the work, but I would love nothing more than to pivot out of this.

[Ann Morris]

I have invested so much time and

[Emily Durham]

energy and education and training to do what I do and I'm very good at it.

[Ann Morris]

But I am feeling like there's nowhere else to go.

[Emily Durham]

So I am just having a moment of does any of this matter and where do I go from here?

[Ann Morris]

So, Emily, let me tee this up a little bit. Just that we hear some version of this. A lot of I thought I put in all this work. I thought I would be jumping out of bed in the morning, and now I feel some version of my throat closing every time I go to work. One question I have as we try to help Sarah is, you know, how do we distinguish feelings of burnout from my boss sucks from I've just picked the wrong career entirely. It seems like she's jumped to the last one, but I'm wondering if there might be these other factors involved for sure.

[Emily Durham]

Oh, Sarah, I just want to give you a hug. First of all, like, you just deserve the biggest hug, my friend. And your feelings are incredibly valid. And just to be clear, if we end up landing on that, this is not the right career path for you, please understand that's not a failing. This is the first leg of your career. Right. Like it's allowed to pivot and change. Where I think let's start with, to your point is figuring out if this is misalignment in the job burnout or like a situational burnout because they are kind of different. Right? So a really good way to test where this pain is coming from is figuring out when you feel the worst about work. Right. Good rule of thumb is if you feel the worst about work on Sunday night and you're thinking about work and it's specifically about how much you have to do and the overwhelm. And I don't know how I'm going to get through this week, that's probably a good sign. It's a workload burnout that's fixable. That means that we shift how many patients we're taking. Perhaps we hire someone on the admin side. That is fixable. If your kind of stress and anxiety is, yes, still coming on Sunday night, but it's about people. And those Sunday scaries get a little bit worse Monday morning because you go, oh God, I have to run into this person and deal with this person. That's usually a sign. The organization that you're working at isn't incredible. Now, I know you're at a private practice, so it might vary how many people you do or don't work with. But if you're getting those scaries that amplify heading into Monday morning, usually a good sign. It's partly the environment around us, so. And sometimes it's a combination of both. The good news is both of those are fixable. If it feels like that's where the pain is coming from, that's workload management. That's adjusting how we work. Maybe we take more remote patients. Like there's fixes for that. The third thing is, do you feel the most strained in the 10 minutes between patients or the 10 minutes between meetings? If you sit there and you go, God, I have to do this again. That's usually a sign. It is, in fact, the work. And you can sit there and kind of, you know, journal through and write through how you're feeling. But those are really good, good spot checks. It sounds like you might be in that third bucket, but always good to pressure test to make sure that's where it's coming from. To be clear, you are not stuck. It's going to feel like you're stuck because right now, every time you open up your phone, there's constant loops of bad news about the job market. And, you know, it's hard to move from here to there. But let's focus on the reality. The reality is you've just invested in transferable skills that so few people have. Do you know how many organizations will want someone with a psychology background, a deep psychology background, who are mental health tech startups, who are large technology companies who study the behavior of their customers as part of their user experience teams, who are people looking to hire you on as a consultant to build up their own private practices? You are not stuck. So what I would encourage is sit down and think about the stuff that energizes you about work. What are the little moments where you're like, okay, I can handle this. Is it the feeling of helping a patient? Maybe we get into consulting to bring other people's practices to scale. Maybe you get into education. Maybe that feels really good. Good. Is it the. The other elements of this that you love? Is it building out the development plans for someone? What about adult learning? Organizations hire learning and development all the time. One of the core requirements, adult psychology and adult learning. So you are not stuck. Let's just have a little bit of fun with what your options are. And you've got lots of opportunity here to play. So don't feel like you're pigeonholed. You are not. But give yourself a chance to breathe and grieve because all the feelings you're feeling are going to make things feel a lot more gray than they are. You've got a lot of really exciting stuff ahead of you. We just need to breathe through it.

[Ann Morris]

Emily Durham, you are so good at your job.

[Emily Durham]

Thank you. I love what I do.

[Ann Morris]

That was 10 out of 10. Magnificent.

[Emily Durham]

Thank you. Well, we've. Sarah's just got so much fabulous in her. Like, can you imagine? Think of the world ahead of you with all of this, and there's nothing worse than the feeling of, oh, God, this is my life forever. But once you're on the other side, think of the story.

[Ann Morris]

You get to tell people two things I really loved. Just breaking up your experience of work into these more micro moments and getting more reliable data to figure out what is it. Because these feelings are so big and I really feel Sarah's pain. These are really big feelings and the conclusions are really big. And I think a moment that I really am curious about for her is that moment when she's in front of patients and she's doing the work that she came to do, which is really playing this catalytic role in another human's evolution. But as you said, there's so many other places that she can use the muscles that she has built in preparing to do this work.

[Emily Durham]

And it's never wasted. It's going to feel like it is, but it never is in the moment. It's going to feel wasted. And then, you know, you hear about the careers of some of the most interesting and successful people on the planet, and they've had 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 different careers. Right. So this isn't a failing. The environment investment you've made in your education has just given you the most Unique skills toolbox in the world. And now we get to figure out how you get to be the coolest candidate in the universe with those unique skills to take you to that next place. You are, you are not stuck, friend. You're almost never stuck.

[Ann Morris]

You're so good at this.

[Emily Durham]

Oh, thank you.

[Ann Morris]

This next one is from Kayleigh who our producing team talk to following her graduation at nyu. Congratulations, Kaylee. Congrats. I would say just in general, as

[Emily Durham]

a new grad, how can we express

[Ann Morris]

our mission and values first at the

[Emily Durham]

forefront of an interview and so that we know like right out the gate

[Ann Morris]

that we're starting out together in alignment. When's a good time to start having

[Emily Durham]

those talks and that conversation?

[Ann Morris]

Yeah, when do we break it to our employers that we are looking for some psychic income as well here? How and when should we tell them?

[Emily Durham]

I love this. I think this is another one where we can take this to be slightly lower stakes. First of all, congratulations on your graduation. You icon, love this for you. I would definitely say like this doesn't need to be a sit down conversation. This doesn't need to be like, oh, we're going steady style chat. This doesn't have to be a. My values are this. How does that work for you? The best way to do this is let's optimize your LinkedIn profile. So this is already obvious. So in your about me section on your LinkedIn in include one sentence that is I'm passionate about and insert three things that are values driven. It might be human connection, corporate social responsibility, whatever it might be. Then when you get into interviews, when they say tell me about yourself because we know, Lord knows they will, you're going to end up including this in your answer. So the best formula for that tell me about yourself is one to two sentences for you know who you are and what you do, what you're looking for and why you're interested in this job at any point in those, you can include one sentence that says I was really interested in this role because I saw that your company is deeply passionate about developing and investing women in tech. That's something that's always been really important to me. All it takes is one sentence to call out your values and that's it. Right. The other things you can do is less about telling them, more about what you tell them by asking what do you do in terms of insert the thing you're passionate about. How does the company navigate? Insert some of the things that matter. What do employee resource groups look like? You can often tell a lot about a company's values by how they answer these questions. But I'm going to give a little tough love. A recruiter's job is to sell. Right. You know they're never going to tell you, oh, we don't care about that. Oh, honey, the animals. We don't. Oh, if all the koalas drop tomorrow, we wouldn't lose sleep. Like so. You're never going to get 100% honesty. But if you pitch yourself to say, these are my values, they can quietly pull back if needed. But if you're really wanting to make sure this company is a good fit for you, let's go to Glassdoor, let's go to Fishbowl. Let's see what the real tea is with what people are saying. Because you can take a lot of what a recruiter says honestly and a little bit with a grain of salt. And I'm not saying recruiters are liars. I am one. But the reality is, if you know you were coming to buy a pair of shoes, I wouldn't tell you how uncomfortable the shoes are because I would be bad at my job. So we just need to do a little bit of supplemental research.

[Ann Morris]

Yep. Including with. With people, other people who work at the company who may not be part of this sales process.

[Emily Durham]

100. There's nothing wrong with asking to speak to someone who's currently in role, even asking questions about like attrition and creeping on LinkedIn, how long people have been there. Usually if a company has decent values, people stick around. Right. And if that's not the case, it is something to pay attention to.

[Ann Morris]

Yeah. Great. I love that. All right, Emily, some final questions. It is a rough job market out there as you've referenced throughout this conversation. Lots of unknowns, lots of fear, lots of caution from employers, AI freaking everybody out. Give our listeners an Emily the Recruiter pep talk on how to navigate this moment.

[Emily Durham]

So the most powerful thing about knowing that this job market is a dumpster fire is giving yourself permission to realize it's not you. You. It's probably not your resume. It's probably not the fact that you're an imperfect interviewer, whatever that means. Give yourself permission to realize this is how you and thousands, hundreds of thousands really of other candidates are operating in the system. So this is not a reflection of you that relieves a lot of anxiety and a lot of guilt. Here's what I will say. Nothing is forever. Things will eventually correct. Are they going to correct in the next couple years? Probably not. Not. Nope. But what we can do is Adjust our job search strategy so that we are not playing a different game with the same rules that we did a few years ago. And I think that's where I've seen the most transformation with people is let's adjust our strategy for the market around us. Let's remember that this isn't a reflection of us. And let's over index on community. If you're struggling to find work, now's a great time to reach out to people you went to school with. There's no shame in asking for that help having those conversations. But my big underlining pep talk is it's going to feel long and painful and it's not going to be fun and none of it is your fault. We get to accept that it sucks and we get to do our best to try to mitigate getting that job as quickly as possible. But not a reflection of you. And wow, what a horrible, horrible chapter in history. Our kids are going to have to study one day and you get to say you were a part of it. You know, maybe that's a silver lining.

[Ann Morris]

I, I love your advice to tell a skillful and productive story about your experience. It is, I can tell you from the other side the muscle that is going to be most important to you as you navigate your career. Because our default is going to put us at the center and it's all our fault and we screwed this up in some way and it's not helpful and it's not accurate. And so if we can really push on those dimensions and give our own selves a productive framework for how we're experiencing this moment, it's, it's the dividend is not just about getting through this, but it is also about managing setbacks

[Emily Durham]

for the rest of your life. 100%. And like the, the little tip I would give is think about your career like a business, not like a career. So if you're really struggling to find that perfect nine to five job, it's totally fine to take on, you know, two part time jobs that equal one full time job. Like, remember that there are no rules left to play. There are no rules on what your career has to look like. There are no rules on what success does or doesn't look like. Like, all that matters is that you are happy with your life and the lights are on. That is the only thing that matters. You don't need to have the swanky consulting job to be a highly successful, meaningful person.

[Ann Morris]

Yeah, I love that. Just a quick psa. Nobody knows what's going to happen and the human Animal does not like this. So we're all trying to replace this experience of uncertainty with certainty, including every single journalist writing every single headline and every single person talking about what's going to happen to jobs and to our children's jobs. And we actually don't know how this is going to play out. And so I really want to push back on the narrative that is out there that all of our hopes and dreams are going to be destroyed by this technological disruption. We actually don't know.

[Emily Durham]

And the thing is, you see a lot of folks compare this to the dot com boom and all of these things. That same sense of uncertainty existed at that time, but we didn't have TikTok to talk about it all day. So if this is feeling heavy, it's allowed to. It's scary. It's disruptive. You're also allowed to log off and take some space because if your for you page is anything like mine, every other video is. Here's how the world's on fire today, and that can feel really heavy in a period that already kind of sucks. Yeah.

[Ann Morris]

Yeah, exactly. What's one thing our listeners can do this week to find more purpose at work?

[Emily Durham]

I would actually say write down in a full sentence the moment in work this week that makes you feel the most alive and just figure out how you can double it. And it might have been talking a little crap with your coworker about that TV show you're both watching. Maybe you book a team lunch. It's allowed to be that, too. So just figure out the stuff that makes you feel 5% more alive. Figure out how we can do that twice next week, too.

[Ann Morris]

Love it. Finally, a question we ask all our guests. What are you currently fixated on outside of work?

[Emily Durham]

Two things. I've already mentioned it, but one thing about me, I'm unwinding with reality tv. I am obsessed with the new franchise, the Real Housewives of Rhode Island. It is cinematic masterpiece. These women. These women are wild. Specifically, I would say the second thing I'm obsessed with is one of the women in the show is very averse to driving. And she has a quote that I have now been carrying with me throughout my days. And she goes with her thick, gorgeous, gorgeous Rhode island accent, she goes, I. I'm a really bad driver. She goes, driving's really hard for me. I have to eat a cracker at every stoplight because one time I ran over a woman and the scene kept going. And just like that, our lives can keep going, too.

[Adam Grant]

You.

[Emily Durham]

You want to talk about resilience let's talk about Alicia from the Real Housewives of Rhode Island.

[Ann Morris]

Oh, she's gonna be our mascot in these trying times.

[Emily Durham]

It's just fabulous.

[Ann Morris]

Just fabulous. Emily, you are awesome. How can our our listeners get even more of you after hearing this episode?

[Emily Durham]

Thank you so much. You can find me everywhere online@emilytherecruiter. So that's Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. You can listen to my podcast Clock in wherever you get your shows. And most recently, you can pick up my debut career advice book, Clock In. No BS advice for getting ahead in your career without losing your mind.

[Ann Morris]

Listeners of Fixable do all of those things. Run, don't walk. Thank you Emily.

[Emily Durham]

Thank you. Go.

[Ann Morris]

If you're enjoying this show, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast and tell a friend to check us out. Fixable is a podcast brought to you by Ted and Pushkin Industries. It's hosted by me, Anne Morris and me, Francis Fry. This episode was produced by Trina Menino. Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Banban Chang, Daniela Baloro and Roxanne Hylash. Our show is mixed by Louie at Story Yard.

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Emily Durham]

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[Adam Grant]

Hey, it's Adam Grant from ted's podcast Rethinking with Adam Grant. This episode is sponsored by the Amazon Kindle scribe. Up until now, people have had to choose between the focus that comes from writing on paper and the efficiency of laptops and tablets, which might come at the cost of distracting pop ups and notifications. The Kindle Scribe's exciting new AI features are designed to streamline your workflow for maximum efficiency, but what's not on it is just as important. Scribe comes with no email, messaging or social apps, so you can unlock your best focus. Use Scribe's AI Notebook Insights to ask your notebook a question and instantly comb through handwritten notes for fast answers. Or pull up and Mark PDFs with PDF markup right on your screen. No printer necessary. The Kindle Scribe makes it easy to keep your notes organized with everything you need in one place without having to sort through paper files or type notes on your laptop. I love how the Kindle Scribe brings my notes to life while making them impossible to lose. I know what I'm working on moving forward. What are you working on? Kindle Scribe Hi there, it's Adam Grant from ted's Rethinking Podcast, and this episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. I get to spend my days studying how people think and what it actually takes to change our minds. It's work I find deeply meaningful. But even in meaningful work, there's still busy work. The admin, the repetitive processes, the invisible load that pulls attention away from what really matters. That's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work, they actually do it. Start to finish, cases closed, requests hand. No extra work for you. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit ServiceNow.com.