Career fatigue? Doubts about your dream job? Bangaly Kaba, Director of Product Management at YouTube, offers a simple approach to finding out whether your current job is the right one with his “Impact” formula.

The formula:

Impact = Environment x Skills

Simply explained:

• Environment: The working environment, corporate culture, colleagues and the nature of the tasks.

• Skills: Your abilities, talents and interests.

This is how it works:

• Analyze your work environment: How satisfied are you with the company, the culture and your colleagues? Does the type of work match your interests and values?

• Evaluate your skills: What strengths and talents do you bring to your job? Can you use these skills to their full potential?

• Multiply: Combine the two factors. A high impact means that your work environment optimally supports your skills and you can fully develop your talents.

Example:

You work as a software developer in an innovative start-up. You love the challenge of learning new technologies and appreciate the flat hierarchy in the company. Your skills are valued and you have the opportunity to continuously develop yourself. In this case, the impact is probably high.

If the impact is low, there may be various reasons for this:

• Dissatisfaction with the working environment: poor company culture, unfriendly colleagues or tasks that do not match your interests.

• Lack of utilization of your skills: You feel like you're not using your talents to their full potential or you're not learning anything new on the job.

• Imbalance between environment and skills: The working environment is good, but your skills are not sufficiently challenged or vice versa.

Conclusion:

The “impact” formula is a simple tool for critically scrutinizing your own career. It helps you to recognize whether your job promotes your skills and whether you can make a meaningful contribution.

If the impact is low, it may be time to look for new challenges.

Remember: the formula is not a rigid law, but a guide.

It is important that you honestly assess your own situation and make decisions that will make you happy and successful in the long term.

Additional questions:

• What other factors do you think are important in job satisfaction?

• Have you ever used the “impact” formula? What were your findings?

• Are there other methods to find out if you are in the right job?