PORTRAYING OPPORTUNITIES FOR MEANINGFUL WORK IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPER JOB ADVERTISEMENTS IN BULGARIA

Abstract

Objectives: The question that the article attempts to answer is whether and how the opportunities for meaningful work could be positioned as a competitive advantage in job advertisements. A specific focus is the software development job market in Bulgaria. Material and methods. Content analysis was applied to a sample of 60 job advertisements using the keywords “software engineer” and “software developer”. All selected job advertisements included a part describing what the company offers to its potential new hires. This specific part of the job advertisement was analyzed through manual coding of phrases. The coding was drawn from the Meaningful Work Framework model developed by Lips-Wiersma and Morris (2009) and Lips-Wiersma and Wright (2012), including “Unity with Others”, “Developing and Becoming Self”, “Expressing Full Potential”, “Service to Others”. Results. The majority (64%) of the phrases related to meaningful work could be linked to “Expressing Full Potential”. “Unity to Others” could be identified as a theme in 32% of the phrases related to meaningful work. “Service to Others” was found in 3% of the phrases. “Developing and Becoming Self” was not identified as a theme. Conclusion. Even though elements of the concept of meaningful work could be identified in the analyzed job advertisements, there is a prevalence of opportunities related to “Expressing Full Potential”. Such disbalance could be attributed to the job advertisements’ specifics as a medium to promote opportunities for new jobs. Keywords: meaningful work, job advertisements, software developer.