I won’t make the same mistake again: burnout history and job preferences

The burnout literature has focused on the determinants of burnout, whereas its careers consequences remain understudied. Therefore, we investigate whether recently burned-out individuals differ in job preferences from non-burned-out workers. We link these differences in preferences with (1) perceptions of job demands and resources, as well as (2) the weighting of such perceptions. To this end, a sample of 582 employees varying in their history of burnout judged job offers with manipulated characteristics in terms of their willingness to apply as well as perceived job demands and resources. We find that recently burned-out employees appreciate possibilities to telework and fixed feedback relatively more, while being relatively less attracted to learning opportunities. These findings can be partially explained by differences in the jobs’ perceived resources.