6 Commonly Missed Opportunities When Negotiating a New Job
Job market statistics show that most of us will change jobs about every four years, so unless you are three years out of retirement you should learn to evaluate an employment opportunity beyond just compensation and work-life balance stuff.
This means thinking a bit differently about your definition of a great opportunity. From my experience, a great opportunity is not only about salary and PTO. The best opportunities, particularly for young people and career changers, are the ones that have the most impact on marketability to the next role after the imminent one.
Therefore, without further ado, here is my list of the most important factors in evaluating an employment opportunity running from six (least important) to one. I suspect that you won’t believe me when you first read this, but let it sink in.
6. Advancement Opportunity Within the Company
This one is admittedly important. I only put it in 6th place because many of my readers would know to ask this at or before offer stage. But there is a nuance here that most people don’t consider.
Growth can mean different things in different environments. For example, large companies will typically have defined career paths. They will be able to tell you with some degree of confidence where a position would lead and what it takes to get there. In this case, asking about a typical career path will be more straightforward.
But smaller organizations are more likely to need people who can grow by addressing a business need that hadn’t existed before at scale or by specializing in a functional area for which demand has exploded. For these situations it is usually better to assess the alignment between your ambition and the company’s plans for future growth in your field than it is to talk position titles.
Executive level job candidates would take the latter role in almost all cases because growth for a CFO may likely mean being a CFO on a more epic scale.
5. Training & Professional Development
The reason that this isn’t higher is that we are solely dependent on our employer to get it. We can often obtain training to remain current on our own.
For example, an analyst may see that Tableau is a trending technology in their field and that they will need to add the skill eventually. But they may receive an offer for a job that will provide tons of killer spreadsheet and data management skills but where the presentations are done using a different tool. That job may be a good way to gain those other skills while earning a badge for Tableau on your own time.
In situations like this one, it may make sense to focus negotiations on freeing up time to do learn Tableau and offer to bring that knowledge back to the employer.
4. Performance Management /Feedback Policy
I have seen that the number one reason why new jobs blow up quickly is that there is a disconnect between what an employer thinks we should be doing and what we think that they think we should be doing.
And it happens a lot because most interviews don’t focus on the impact and results that employers are looking for. And most candidates never ask. The result of this is that most hiring decisions are based either on chemistry and duties rather than outcomes.
If you decide to ignore every piece of advice in this blog post but one, let it be this: NEVER, EVER take a job if you are not clear on how success is measured, what obstacles may exist to achieve that success, and how resources are aligned to support that success.
Understanding these factors prior to starting is the best way to ensure you will launch well. Failure to do this will leave you and your boss bewildered by why things went wrong.
It is also a good idea to ask about the frequency and nature of feedback. You don’t want your annual performance review to be the first time you get a sense of how you are tracking.
If an employer has no performance feedback mechanism, offer to take the responsibility of setting up monthly status updates through which you can keep your boss informed about what you plan to do and how you performed against what you had previously committed to doing.
I have personal experience using this technique and have coached many others to do it. It works great!
3. Strong Company Reputation
Remember Enron? Lehman Brothers? Arthur Anderson? These are just some of the most prolific examples of how a company’s contaminated reputation can help or hurt our brand.
Imagine being the most meticulous and honest accountant in the world, but you are employed by a company who has become notorious for poor ethics, noncompliance, and unreliable work product. Or being a part of the Bud Light marketing team following the defection of nearly 30% of their customer base because of a misguided promotional campaign.
You may have had nothing to do with those decisions, but your name can be Mudd just the same.
Doing due diligence on your future employer online or through contacts should be priority #1 on your to do list when evaluating an opportunity.
In many cases, a company with a terrific reputation can add immense value to our credentials. For years, anyone who worked for General Electric could earn an almost instantaneous interview based on the company’s reputation as experts in the Six Sigma methodology.
As with sports, employers love to hire people who have implied value by being associated with a great culture.
2. Professional Network Development Opportunity
I add this here because while building an effective professional network is priority #1 for career management, no one ever thinks about it when assessing a job opportunity.
Bear in mind that 75% to 80% of jobs are filled through the hidden job market. And the easiest, and best, way to make and maintain contacts if it is within the context of your job.
You therefore want to think twice about taking a job at a company that wants you to model your LinkedIn job description to match their product offerings vs. your own. You should be wary of working for a boss who doesn’t have a LinkedIn presence and may likely be apprehensive about you engaging with your external network through any means.
When you do take a new job, make sure to update your profile immediately and start engaging with your network right away. Start by sharing your excitement about the new opportunity to demonstrate that you are conditioned to using LinkedIn in the context of your job and that there is nothing unordinary about it.
Failing to do this can greatly increase your risk down the road if you feel that you need to explore some new avenues. A sudden flurry of activity could be seen as a red flag by your colleagues and customers. Maintaining activity on an ongoing basis is therefore not only more productive, but also safer.
1. Employers’ Commitment to Technology & Industry Best Practices
The best way to erode your value to the job market is to fail to remain current with the tools needed to do your job and prevailing best practices regarding how to do the work.
While I acknowledged earlier that it is possible to pick up skills on or own, this article is about qualifying a great opportunity rather than working around a less than perfect one. Demonstrating the use of cutting-edge tools in the execution of your job will have more obvious and literal value to a future employer than will skills earned in the classroom.
For example, being able to list Tableau under your current job description will provide a significantly better result with applicant tracking systems than will adding it in a special “technical skills” section on the resume.
That you have been executing the job using the best approaches can be even more important. The ability to truly say that you are working in an environment that uses agile, six sigma, or lean will make you much more obviously appealing to companies that use those frameworks.
There are ways around this, of course, but the closer the job you are in now is to the job you want next, the easier it is for you and everyone else to see it.
Some other more obscure negotiating points:
Other than my top six, there are some other things to look for in an opportunity that can enhance or detract from your value going forward:
Job Title: While there are ways around it, the most obvious way to show value as a COO is to be a COO.
Non-Competition Agreement: Given recent regulatory trends, these may become less common. But they can make exits difficult and costly if the job doesn’t work out.
Severance / Outplacement Assistance: This is also less common nowadays. But negotiating a soft landing in the event your job evaporates is a big plus. Especially if the company is less established.
So, what’s the bottom line?
Workers who are in control of their careers always have an idea of the direction they want their career to go and how a potential job opportunity will fit into that goal. There are a lot of reasons why we might take a job that doesn’t move us forward. But we should never, ever take a job without knowing how it fits within the greater scheme.
