A new report from Gallup and Bates College shows most students want to find a sense of purpose in their work, but they aren’t always succeeding.
Recent college graduates want “purpose” in their jobs, but they aren’t always finding it, according to a new survey.
The report, “Forging Pathways to Purposeful Work,” from Gallup and Bates College, found that 95 percent of four-year college graduates nationally considered a sense of purpose at least moderately important in their work. (Note: Gallup conducts some surveys for Inside Higher Ed, but this publication was uninvolved in this study.)
But of the graduates who strongly felt that a purpose was important, only 40 percent said they had found a meaningful career. Only 34 percent indicated they were deeply interested in their work, and 26 percent reported that they liked what they were doing on a daily basis.
“This ‘purpose gap’ is a glaring problem for the younger work force, as millennials place a higher priority on purpose in their lives than previous generations, and they look to work more than other sources to find it,” A. Clayton Spencer, president of Bates, said in a statement. “The purpose gap is also a challenge for employers because of a strong correlation between employees’ purpose and engagement and an organization’s bottom line.”