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Deciding What's Important: Job Targets

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What is a requirement for you may be a preference for me, and vice versa. You may not care about where you have to move in order to get a particular job. Because of family considerations, I may be adamant about staying in the city where I now live.

In helping candidates clarify job targets, I've always found it useful to classify job target criteria into two basic categories: primary and secondary. (There's no reason you can't really add two or three more categories if needed.) Into the primary category go those job features that you are either unwilling or unable, for some reason, to compromise on. Money, for in-stance, is obviously a primary consideration: any job you take should at least pay enough to meet your basic living expenses. (There is one exception here: sometimes in a job campaign, it may be prudent to take a job that doesn't meet your salary requirements for now but positions you for another job with those requirements.)

Commuting time, on the other hand, is usually a secondary consideration. It would be nice to have a relatively easy com-mute, but most people (though not all) will put up with com-muting inconvenience if the job is attractive enough.



Opportunity for advancement could be either primary or secondary, depending upon your situation. If you are a person whose spouse is already earning a good living and if you are looking for a job mainly because you'd like to get involved as opposed to establishing a career, advancement isn't as important to you as it may be for somebody anxious to move up the corporate ladder. The same can be said for the job environment. If it is important that you work in an easygoing environment with people you like, then job environment becomes a primary consideration. If these things aren't terribly important to you, environment becomes a secondary consideration.

The point here is that what is primary and what is secondary's highly subjective. Make sure when you're setting up categories that you separate primary from secondary considerations on the criteria that relate to your situation.

Breaking It Down

I've had candidates insist they didn't care who they worked for or in what industry-they simply wanted a data-processing job that would pay them at least $35,000. I've also had candidates armed with a list of three or four companies, saying that these were the only companies they would consider working for. I've received similar lists of companies a person didn't want to work for. I can remember one executive whose target specifications were so specific they even included the maker of company car he wanted to drive. I was tempted in that situation to ask the man if he had any preference with respect to upholstery, but I held my tongue.

Only you can decide which job features-title, money, responsibility, location, company, field, etc.-are of primary importance and which are of secondary importance. But here are some principles to bear in mind when you're making these decisions.

1. The occupation: Your occupation, of course, is what you do-or have been trained to do-for a living. It's your specialty, your career. You're a salesperson, a teacher, an engineer, an accountant, a chemist, a computer programmer, a writer, a camera operator, a chef, and so on. Even though you are out of work, you still have an occupation. But the fact that you have a particular job may not mean that this job is your occupation. The waiter who took your order the last time you went out to dinner might describe his occupation as "acting." The man who cleared the leaves from your yard last month may be a teacher temporarily out of work.

If you are the typical job seeker, you are probably looking for a job in your particular occupation, which is to say that occupation is a primary consideration. If it isn't a primary consideration to you, it is for the person who is thinking of hiring you. If I have an accounting position open, Fm looking for an accountant, not an insurance salesperson who wants to become an accountant If I have a position open for an insurance salesperson, Fm looking primarily for someone whose occupation is selling insurance, not an accountant who wants to sell insurance. True, I may be so impressed with this accountant who wants to get into insurance sales that I choose this individual over other candidates. But I have to be very impressed.

2. Money: Money is almost always a primary consideration. If it isn't, you're very rich, have a rich spouse, or have figured out a way to make a decent life for yourself without money. But it isn't only the minimum amount of money you'll settle for that's the issue. I know of some candidates who actually set a ceiling on what they want Years ago, a man told me he didn't want to earn more than $15,000 a year.

"But with your qualifications," I told him, you could probably get $20,000 or more."

"I don't care," he said. "I can get along with $15,000. If I earned more, I'd risk losing the job if the company goes through a tough period."

One important reason for taking the money part of the job seriously is that if you don't, you may scare off a would-be employer. Say to a would-be employer, "Money isn't important to me," and the employer will immediately think, "Here is somebody Fm not going to be able to control." Goodbye, job.

Better to say something like, "Starting salary isn't as important to me as the future," and go on to express your confidence that once the company has had a chance to evaluate your performance the salary will be adjusted. In the event the job is offered you and the salary is less than your present earnings, you can always hedge and say that when you said salary wasn't as "important as the future," you never expected the offer to be less than your current salary.

The lesson: Even if money doesn't really mean that much to you, and even if you don't need the money to live on, keep this information to yourself. Otherwise, your job target should include a basic salary figure-what you need to cover living expenses and then some.

3. The field:"Field" is a tricky concept, and far too many people use it interchangeably with occupation. Try to keep the two separate. Writing is an occupation; advertising is a field. Engineering is an occupation; electronics is a field. Selling is an occupation; insurance is a field.

Generally speaking, it's not as important to incorporate a specific field into a job target as it is to be able to pinpoint a specific occupation and the salary you're expecting. But it certainly gives more direction to your job search to narrow your target down to a single field, or no more than two or three fields. In some situations, a company will be more interested in your field of experience than in your general occupational experience, and it's important in these instances that you are able to articulate your reasons for being drawn to a field and the qualifications that make you right for it. Recently, I heard of an advertising salesman who landed a very good job as the ad sales director on a food and wine magazine. He had no experience with this kind of a magazine, but he was a good advertising man and, more important, his hobby was gourmet cooking. He knew the field.

Some fields, by virtue of their image and their glamour, are inherently more attractive than others, but this does not necessarily mean that the jobs themselves are any better. In fact, the opposite often holds true. Because the demand is greater, companies in certain glamour fields, such as entertainment, publishing, and advertising, can get away with offering lower salaries than you would accept in a different field.

It's only normal, of course, to be attracted to a field because of its image. And it's true that the more low-keyed and conservative a field is-banking, for instance-the more likely the people you work with are going to be low-keyed and conservative. The danger, though, is getting so caught up in the glamour of a field that you're blind to good opportunities in other fields, blind to the limitations you place yourself under by taking a job simply because it's in the field you want. I'm sure you've heard the joke about the man whose job at the circus was to follow the elephant around the ring and pick up the leavings with a broom and shovel. He wouldn't dream of looking for another job because it would mean "quitting show business." Well, I know a number of people in similar situations, one of them a woman who does administrative work with a major radio station in New York and admits the place has the atmosphere of a prison camp. "I'm really miserable there," she says. "But I love to tell people I work there because it sounds exciting." So does show business.

Here are a few random thoughts on fields to file away in the back of your mind:
  • The longer you stay in a particular field, the more likely you will be typecast as one who is part of that field. You're no longer thought of as an accountant but a "real estate accountant"; you're no longer an engineer, but a "road construction engineer." There are both advantages and disadvantages to this. One advantage is that there are relatively few people like yourself, which means you can sometimes demand-and get-more money. One disadvantage is that you sacrifice flexibility: someone might interpret the fact that you've been so long in a particular field as meaning you can't do anything else.

  • The more glamorous the field, the more competition you'll run into for jobs and the lower the entry-level and middle-level salaries will be.

  • No field has a monopoly on "good jobs" or is completely without "bad jobs."

  • I know unconventional people who are happily employed in very conservative fields, like insurance. I know conservative people who are happily employed in offbeat fields, like the recording industry. What does this mean? It's the job, not the field that determines job satisfaction.

  • It's easier, in general, to change fields than to change careers. In fact, you can use a change of fields as a vehicle for changing careers. A lawyer I know began with a typical law firm but decided he wanted to go into the entertainment business. He took a job as a lawyer for a large entertainment company, but within two years had worked himself into the business and production side of the company. Without that interim, transitional move, he could not have gotten the same kind of job.
4. The company: There are big companies, little companies, family-owned companies, multi-national companies, companies that have an almost paternalistic regard for their employees, companies that have no regard for their employees, companies that are known for offering quick advancement but not much security, and companies that are big on security but slow when it comes to advancement.

It's probably a good idea to have as part of your job target a general sense of the kind of company you want to work for, but don't set your sights on certain companies-or make up your mind to avoid certain companies-simply because they have a reputation you may not like. First of all, what you've heard about a company may not apply to the division you'll be working with and, for that matter, may not even be true. Secondly, you'll have plenty of chances once you begin interviewing to see for yourself whether the environment is one you would feel comfortable in. Chances are, if you're wrong for the environment, the company will recognize this sooner than you do.

In any event, the following list will give you a sense of some of the options open to you. These are some of the different kinds of companies you might end up working for:
  • A large, national or multi-national corporation in which career advancement may mean being willing to relocate from time to time.

  • A smaller, locally headquartered company in which relocation is unlikely.

  • High involvement company; one in which it's taken for granted that you'll arrive early and stay late.

  • Low involvement-in which work is pretty much a 9 to 5 affair.

  • A company with a highly competitive atmosphere that offers speedy advancement.

  • A less competitive company where you're unlikely to get fired as long as you do a reasonably good job.

  • A company known for its social consciousness.

  • A company in the midst of rapid expansion.

  • A company with a less dramatic growth pattern but one known for its consistency and stability.

  • A company that is losing money, which offers you the chance to be a hero.
5. The position: The position is the specific job being offered: its title, its salary, its duties and responsibilities, and all the intangible elements that relate to the amount of satisfaction you derive from it.

You're making a mistake if you build your job strategy around too specific a job position target. First of all, the same title may mean different types of jobs in different companies. You decide you want to become the director of public relations for a hotel. Such an opening may exist, but because some hotel companies lump public relations with marketing, it may be described as director of marketing. Also, whatever you do, don't get caught up in the beginning of your job search with all the various cosmetic aspects of a job-the kind of office you're going to have, the number of people who will report to you, the flexibility you'll have with your hours. Rid your mind, in other words, of the image of the "ideal job." For all intents and purposes, it doesn't exist. Get a job that approximates this ideal, and once you're in the job, then make changes that will make it more suitable for you.

Job Target: Summing Up

Having job targets gives your campaign a structure and direction it wouldn't otherwise have. Formulate them on the basis of what you need and what you would like in a job, and don't confuse the two. Start with your occupation (or occupations), add a basic salary requirement, pick the field or two you'd like to be in, and you've got enough to work with. Stay flexible!

How Long Before You Get Hired?

As you can well appreciate, it's difficult to estimate how long it is going to take you to find the job you want. It depends on many different things, not the least of which is how selective you intend to be.

Even so, part of setting up a job search campaign is setting up some sort of projected time frame. Years ago I developed a system that works as well as any I've ever seen.

You begin by taking your present or last salary, including bonus and fringes, knocking off the last three digits, and dividing by 2. The figure you come up with is your base number of weeks. So, if you were making $20,000 in your last job, your calculations would produce a base number of 10, or 10 weeks.

A starting figure of $40,000 would produce a base number of 20, or 20 weeks.

Another way of figuring this estimate is 1 week for every $2,000 in salary you were making before.

Once you have a base figure, you're ready to figure into your estimate some of the following individual considerations:

Your competitive qualifications: If they are high, deduct 20 percent from the base figure (for 20-week base figure, you'd now have 16 weeks, etc.). If they are low, add 50 percent (the 20 now becomes 30). If they're average, do nothing.

The "exposure" factor: If you intend, for whatever reason, to keep your job hunt a secret-which is to say, you'll tell almost no one that you're looking, multiply by 2.

Personal characteristics: If your appearance, personality, and communications skills are excellent, deduct 20 percent off the new figure. If they're poor, add 50 percent. If average, do nothing.

Your specific requirements (location, size of company, etc.): If these are highly specific, add 20 percent. If they're not critical, deduct 20 percent. If average, do nothing.

Salary demands: If you're looking for an increase of 20 percent or more, add 50 percent to the figure. If you're willing to take a 10 percent decrease in salary, deduct 20 percent. Otherwise, do nothing. Note: these figures relate to unemployed job seekers. If you're working, figure a 25 percent increase in the base figure when you're looking for a 20 percent salary increase. A 5 percent deduction in the base week figure if you're willing to take a 20 percent decrease in salary.

If your final calculation is less than your base number of weeks, insert the base. Otherwise, the final figure you get represents the number of weeks you should figure on your job search taking.

Job Search Time-A Guide

Your present or last annual salary (with bonus)

Your base of weeks (omit last three digits of salary above and divide by 2)

Competitive qualifications:

High-deduct 20%

Low-add 50%

Not willing to take risk

Multiply by 2

Personal characteristics

Excellent-deduct 20%

Poor-add 50%

Requirements

Critical-add 20%

Not critical-deduct 20%

Salary demands (if unemployed)

Increase of 20% or more-add 50%

Decrease of 10% or more-deduct 20%

Salary demands (if employed)

Increase of 20% or more-add 25%

Decrease of 25% or more-deduct 25%

Final job search time in weeks

NOTE: If this figure is lower than base number at top, use original number. Also: don't attempt to use this guide if you intend to change careers. Depending on the circumstances, the change may be unconscionably long, even if you're willing to make salary sacrifices.
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