Job
offers are like Onions – you need to peel each layer back to
see what is inside
Is
this the right place for me to work?
Ultimately,
this is the biggest career question you must face. Consider it
intelligence that's hidden deep in the onion. I'll try to help you
peel down to that level by offering you a simple set of criteria on
which to judge an employer.
Evaluate
an employer on three key factors:
its people,
its
product, and
its
reputation.
As
we explore these factors in detail, you'll see that some aspects of
this approach are a little touchy-feely in nature, and some require
objective research and analysis. In most cases, this approach
requires a lot of something you probably do in your work: talking
with people.
1.
Make sure you'll be working with good people.
This
is not as obvious as it seems. Too often, the "point man"
who hires you is one of only a few people you meet at a company
before you start to work there. But to assess the "goodness"
of the people in the company you have to explore much further.
Explore
the depths. Taking
a job is a little like deciding whether to marry someone. The more of
his (or her) friends you meet, the more likely you'll know what
you're getting into. Explore a company in enough depth to get a good
idea of who you will be living with day in, day out.
Never
assume a company's personality and character match that of the
manager who's hiring you. Once hired, you will likely spend more time
with people you've never met than with the guy who hired you -- and
you'll be impacted by the decisions these people make.
Chart
the players.
Draw a picture of your workday and your work month. Lay out the tasks
you'll be doing, and then draw lines to all the departments and
specific people who will be working with you and whose work will
impact your ability to do yours. Ask the manager conducting the
interview to help you create this chart.
Then
explain that you'll need to meet some of these people -- all of them,
if possible. The meetings can be brief, but they're critical. If the
employer balks, explain yourself simply: "I work hard and I'm a
great producer. Some people will be significantly affected by my
work, and they will affect my ability to do my work as well. It's in
all of our interests to make sure we can work together."
Managers
are a special case in your little drawing "Will I be working for
you personally for the next year? If I'm your direct report, will I
report to anyone else on a dotted line?"
Managers
set the tone for how the work is done across a company. Meeting as
many "other" managers as you can, in advance, is a great
way to assess how the entire company functions. ("Before I take
this sales job, I'd like to meet the manager of customer service and
the marketing manager.") Perhaps best of all, once you've met
these managers in your interviews, you will have established a
rapport that will serve you well later.
Probe
for character.
Meeting the key players will quickly help you see what life will be
like on a job. Too often, job candidates see a very appealing job and
take it, only to find that the people they have to work with (not
necessarily in their own department) are inept, unmotivated or
unenthusiastic -- or that they have a completely different work
ethic.
Try
to figure out who will be part of your cross-departmental work team
and spend a little time with them before you join up. Have lunch with
them. Encourage them to talk about how they do their work, and how
they'd be interacting with you. Learn about their expectations and
their standards.
While
you're assessing all these personalities, you can probe the company's
character. Ask each employee about management's reward practices --
do they acknowledge good performers with raises, promotions, new
projects and exciting work?
Finally,
do a search (at the library and online) for the key players in the
organization. See what the professional and business press has to say
about them.
Control
the onion.
Don't base your decision to take a job strictly on the people the
company wants you to meet. An interview should cut two ways: they get
to know you, and you get to know them. Many companies will be
surprised when you make this request prior to accepting an offer.
That's why it's sometimes best to wait until they've made a solid
commitment to you. Once you have the offer, you have more control and
they're less likely to refuse. The onion is in your hands; keep
peeling.
Now,
this is not permission to go overboard and conduct an inquisition. Be
reasonable. But, you want to know whether the people you'll be
working with, especially the managers, are going your way.
2.
Make sure the company produces a good product or service.
This
may seem silly. Who would join a company that makes a poor product?
Unfortunately,
the "hot job market" mentality leads many people to think
short-term and to base job decisions primarily on the size of a
compensation package and on whether the company is in a "hot"
field. (The latter is referred to as "wanting a challenge").
Smart workers think long-term and recognize that one of the real
career challenges today revolves around finding an employer that
knows how to manage its business so it will "survive to play
again" next year.
Take
the long view.
Don't judge a company just on the gleam in some manager's eye, or on
the hot technology they tell you they're developing. Judge a company
also on what it successfully ships out the door and on how happy its
customers are, because that's what will pay your salary and provide
you with more work.
A
"hot" product may not be a good product. And no product
stands alone -- it's usually part of a constellation of products that
either combine to make the company successful or that hang apart and
turn the company's search for success into a wild goose chase.
Likewise, the hot technology (or service) a company is touting -- and
which you're so eager to work with -- may mask product and business
problems you know nothing about.
Judge
and judge some more.
You judge a product or service by comparing it to competing or
similar products. You can also try to benchmark the product against
itself.
What did it look like a
year ago? Two? Five?
How
has it evolved to meet the needs of customers?
Has
the product changed on a continuous curve, or has it made leaps that
significantly changed the way its customers benefit from it?
Is
the product driving the market or following it? (Make an educated
guess about which competing product might replace this one in
customers' minds a year or three down the road.)
Does
the organization take risks to drive improvements? Or, has it been
complacent?
How
much does the company spend on training?
Does
the company develop its "people assets" as aggressively as
it develops technology?
Does
it demonstrate that it's a long-term player in its industry?
All
these measures will suggest something about the future, and about how
your own ideas/contributions might be met by management. These are
issues to research independently, but you should also discuss them in
your interview. If an offer has already been extended, request an
additional meeting to go over these strategic questions.
If
the product isn't a good one, neither is the job offer.
3.
Make sure the company has a good reputation.
We
all like to be forgiving, but sometimes that leads to wishful
thinking.
Separate
fact from opinion.
Don't gamble on your first impressions. It may be that a headhunter
has told you great things about a company. Maybe you read the company
is about to introduce a promising new product, or you've heard about
its rapid rise in the stock market.
Take
careful note: none of these data points are on the reputation graph;
they're measures of opinion. Reputation is more complex; its a
tougher onion to peel. Assessing a company's reputation requires
talking to the people who depend on the company for their own
success.
Track
down the truth.
To really get at a company's reputation, follow the money.
Track
down and talk with the company's customers, its vendors, its
competitors and its employees. Talk to the investment bankers who
provide the cash and the credit. Each of them will give you a
different perspective on the business, but all of them have skin in
the game. Their assessments matter because their own futures hinge on
the company's success -- and the company's success hinges on them.
Next,
search the professional and business media for information. Talk to
reporters who write about the organization. You'll quickly identify
the trends, and you'll develop questions to ask management.
Most
important, talk to the customers and the employees. When a reputation
breaks, these are the people who know it first. Review the questions
in this article with them. (Be diplomatic and discreet, but be firm.)
You'll learn a great deal.
Perhaps
more than anything else, a good reputation gets a company through the
hard times, past the mistakes, and positions it to survive the
vicissitudes of life in the business world. A company's reputation
may vary depending on who you're talking to. That's why you need lots
of data points before you can conclude that this is a place you'd
want to be associated with.
Inside
the onion: people, products and reputation
You
can try to evaluate an offer and guess at the value of your future in
dollars, but ultimately even the dollars depend on the people, the
products and the reputation to which you bind yourself. That's what
you must peel the offer down to.
Perhaps
the most important thought I can leave you with is this: while a job
offer spells out the bucks, the three decision factors we've reviewed
here are never laid out for you. You must assess them for yourself,
and it's no easy task. Putting an employer under this kind of
scrutiny takes a lot of thought, research and time spent talking with
the people who will impact your future.
But,
once you've got the information you need, you'll be able to put the
compensation, the benefits and the learning experience into
perspective when evaluating your offers and counteroffers.
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