What do you want to be when you grow up?

Sue Kealy is a chartered work and organisational psychologist who has been working with career seekers for over a decade.

| By Susan Kealy

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Software-as-a-Service (SAAS), Testingas-a-Service (TAAS), IaaS, FaaS, PaaS. These were the buzzwords of the early 2000s – a time of the “service economy” ramping up in the West.

What I never hear mentioned is “Careeras-a-Service”.

When you were younger and you thought about what you wanted to be when you grew up, what was on your mind? Were you thinking about what you were good at? What your parents did? Where the jobs would be? How much you wanted to earn some day?

Did you ever think about how you wanted to help someone?

Did you think about your job as a service? Because that’s what careers are, all careers - no exceptions. Builder, shop assistant, doctor, accountant, parking inspector - if your job was not providing value to someone, it would not exist. You are providing a service to society. You are contributing to creating a particular type of world.

Yet we never seem to start there.

The question matters – as research will tell you - because it gets to the core of who we are as human-beings. We are built for connection with others and for service - helping is a way that we experience a good quality of life. This concept, called Eudaimonia, is about the happiness that comes from fulfilling your potential, from being the most that you