How well do you fit the job characteristics? If you can get a job description or a copy of the job requisition from the person who offered you the job, go back to the article, "What Kind of Job Should You Search For?" and make an estimate of the various job characteristics using the Marilyn Moats Kennedy, "When the offer doesn't come," National Business Employment Weekly, Spring, 1987, pp. 31-33.
Find out everything you can about the job. Do some additional research on the company, using the resources mentioned in the article, "Finding Out Where the Jobs Are." What would your duties be, who would you report to, what is the work climate? If you know someone who works there, ask some discreet questions about general conditions at the firm. Ask knowledgeable people in the community-bankers, lawyers, stockbrokers-about the company's general reputation. Try to do as much cross-checking as you can. If the answers vary widely, be careful.
Check out what you've learned about the job with what you learned about yourself. Would it require some skills you don't have or require that you upgrade existing skills? Would it play to your weaknesses instead of your strengths? Is it a detail job or a broad-picture job? (Which are you-a detail person or a broad-picture person?) Would you be working with things or with people? Which do you do best? Do you have the necessary background and experience to do the job well without a long learning period?
Will the job give you the satisfactions you require? How does each offer you've received stack up against the criteria you developed earlier in your job search? Up to the time of the offer, you were selling yourself. Now, you're being sold to. Don't buy a lemon. Take the time to really think about the job. Cross out any items that don't pertain to the job and add any other criteria that are important to the job.
Then evaluate the job in relation to the criteria. Look at each criterion and make a judgment about its importance to the job. In column 1, rate it a 5 if that characteristic of the job is extremely high, a 4 if it's high, 3 if it's average, 2 or 1 if it is low. After you have rated the job, go back over the list. Decide which of these factors is especially important to you-would, in fact, be a critical factor. In the second column, rate the importance of that factor to you on the same 1 to 5 scale. Then compare your responses about yourself with your responses about the job in column 1. If any of the scores in this column were low-say 1 or 2, and you have rated this factor a 5, it is a deselector. That part of the job doesn't meet your criteria. Have you rated each critical item a 4 or 5? If you have more than one critical factor that's rated 3 or less, don't accept the position.
Should you have more than one offer, you do the same kind of scoring on each position. If you don't have any serious deselectors, then you complete your rating of the other characteristics, and do a weighted score for that job. Multiply the job rating in column 1 times the importance rating in column 2. Place the answer in column 3. After you have scored all the factors for the position, sum the responses in column 3. Repeat the scoring with the second position (and the third, if you're so lucky.) Then compare the scores for each offer. You'll have a combination quantitative/qualitative measure that will be of more value than just your intuition. The job with the highest score should be the one you accept.
Keep in mind that the most significant factor of your performance on the job is apt to be your boss. If you have any reservations about this person-does he or she play by the rules, will your personalities clash, do your work styles mesh - -think long and hard about accepting the position. You may have been made an offer you can't refuse. But if the chemistry just isn't there, you may not last on the job-or worse yet, you'll stay and be miserable.
