Anyone who has searched for a job fresh out of college knows how difficult it is to get that first job. Sending out hundreds of resumes, only to get a few interviews in the end – if you’re lucky! — and if you’re VERY lucky, eventually there’s a job offer on the table.

每一个刚出校园的人都知道找份工作有多么不容易。海投了数百份简历，运气好的话，可以得到几个面试机会，运气再好一点，则有可能得到一个工作机会。

Should you take it, or wait for something better to come along the way?

拿到了个工作offer，是果断接受还是等待更好的机会呢？

It depends on whether you are a “maximizer” or a “satisficer,”. Maximizers want to explore every possible option before buying a camera, settling on a television show, ordering takeout, choosing a job. They gather every stick of information in the hope of making the best possible decision, even if they exhaust themselves in the process—and drive themselves mad when they realize, inevitably, there’s more information they missed. If you are a satisficer, however, you make decisions based on the evidence at hand, not all the evidence that might possibly exist anywhere ever.

这取决于你是“完美主义者”还是“易于满足者”。完美主义者无论是买摄像机、看电视节目、订购外卖还是选工作，都想要探索每一种可能性。他们收集了自己能找到的每一条信息，以期尽可能做出的决定，哪怕付出的代价是让自己在这个过程中精疲力竭——乃至把自己逼疯，因为他们总会不可避免地意识到自己遗漏了某些信息。但是如果你是个易于满足的人，你做决定的依据就会是手头掌握的资料，而非可能散落在天涯海角的零散信息。

Simply put, satisficers are more likely to cut their job search short and take the first job offer. Maximizers are more likely to continue searching until a better job offer comes along.

简单说来，易于满足的求职者倾向于速战速决，抓住个工作机会。完美主义者则倾向于继续求职，直到更好的工作机会来临。

Which type of approach yields the better payoff?

哪种类型的求职者能得到更好的收益？

A maximizer.

完美主义者。

Specifically, quoting the results of a study of the job search of 548 members of the Class of 2002 by Sheena Iyengar, Rachael Wells, and Barry Schwartz, the maximizers put themselves through more contortions in the job hunt. They applied to twenty jobs, on average, while satisficers applied to only ten, and they were significantly more likely to make use of outside sources of information and support. But it turned out to be worth it: the job offers they got were significantly better, in terms of salary, than what the satisficers got.

看一个具体的例子吧。这是一项由希娜-艾扬格、蕾切尔-威尔斯和巴里-施瓦茨针对548名2002届毕业生求职经历展开的研究。完美主义者在求职之路上会绕更多的弯子。他们平均申请二十个职位，而易于满足者只申请十个。而且完美主义者利用外部信息来源和支持的几率要大很多。但是从结果上看，这样做事值得的：从薪水上看，完美主义者比易于满足者找到的工作要好得多。

Satisficers were offered jobs with an average starting salary of $37,085; the average starting salary offered to maximizers was $44,515, more than 20 percent higher.

易于满足者找到的工作，平均起薪是37,085美元；完美主义者拿到的平均起薪则是44,515美元, 高出20%以上。

The trouble is, however, that higher pay doesn’t make maximizers a happier group than satisficers. In fact, maximizers were significantly more likely than satisficers to be unhappy with the offers they accepted.

问题是，更高的薪水并没有让完美主义者比易于满足者更快乐。事实上，完美主义者对自己找到的工作不满意的几率比易于满足者要大得多。

Evidently, being a maximizer can help you earn more income, but that income doesn’t buy more happiness, as the maximizer’s likely to agonize over the prospect of a better job offer out there he or she missed. Maximizers may have objectively superior outcomes, but they’re so busy obsessing about all the things that they could have had, they tend to be less happy with the outcomes they do get.

很明显，完美主义者可以拿到更高的薪水，但高薪并不能买到更多的快乐，因为完美主义者很可能会患得患失，因为自己可能得到更好的工作机会而苦恼不已。可能从客观上讲，完美主义者得到的结果更好，但他们太执迷于自己本来可以得到的一切，因此容易对已经得到的结果不那么满意。