Following the money is trumping following one's passion these days, as workers now opt for more pay as opposed to prestigious or altruistic opportunities, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Inflation, housing costs, student debt and rising interest rates have dissuaded many workers from accepting less money for a job that is highly regarded, and some accounting firms, medical research labs, businesses and organizations that offer the latter over the former are losing out on talent.

Compensation has become an even higher priority for job seekers, surveys by Gallup and the Pew Research Center show, as many workers do not define themselves by their job titles the way they did before the pandemic.

One college professor who took a pay cut to join the faculty at Yale several years ago told the Journal that he’s not so sure he’d make the same decision today. Others said that prestigious jobs often demand long hours or time away from family, which can make even six-figure salaries feel not worth it.

“It only makes sense to take a pay cut for a prestigious job if you think it’s going to ultimately pay you more down the line by facilitating a faster climb up the ladder,” said Betsey Stevenson, a former chief economist of the U.S. Labor Department who is now a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan, in an interview with the Journal.

Churches and synagogues are warning of a looming clergy shortage, the federal government is offering signing bonuses for certain jobs, and even blue-chip banks and consulting firms have had to raise salaries to remain competitive.

Avani Desai left her director-level position at KPMG in 2012 to go to Tampa, Fla.-based Schellman, a much smaller CPA firm that was 10 years old at the time. She had the option to work from home, which enabled her to spend more time with her infant son than she had in his first year due to work-related travel.

Nine years after joining Schellman as an executive vice president, she became CEO.

“This was a strategic move at maximizing my career growth and professional contributions, and maximizing what my financial potential was going to be over time,” she told the Journal.

She added that similar decisions are now more common for her peers and for the people she recruits. Schellman’s great pay and increased flexibility has helped her attract candidates from better-known companies such as Microsoft and Amazon. Those recruits would not have considered her firm in the past, she said.