information processing required are similarly strong predictors, but the evidence is weaker (2). There's also some indirect support for this conclusion. First, employee surveys about job satisfaction (3) have shown that "interesting work" turns out to be what's most important to people, as opposed to pay or status. Second, the five characteristics, in particular 4. and 2. are similar to the conditions needed to enter a state of flow (5)(6) -- the pleasurable state of being so immersed in an activity that you're completely free of distractions and lose track of time. Csikszentmihalyi has argued that being able to enter states of flow is key to having genuinely satisfying experiences, so we'd expect this link. Finally, the fifth characteristic is the extent to which you make a difference. In the 80k community, we've long suspected that leading your career for others leads to happiness. We write about this here Mentally challenging work is important for everyone's job satisfaction, but it's much more important for some people rather than others. If you want your jobs to contribute to personal growth and derive satisfaction from performing challenging tasks (characteristics measured with the Growth Need Strength (GNS) score), then finding challenging work should by far be your main concern (7). If you're wondering, you can measure your score here . Am I different? This post has been all about averages, and you might object that as an individual, your individual preferences will tend to overwhelm information about what satisfies the average person. "Sure,"