NARROWING THE SEARCH
Nearly all job-search books emphasize the importance of self-assessment and establishing career preferences and objectives. Without realistic and meaningful career goals, your job hunt will generally be disappointing and unproductive. If you have not established your career preferences, the opportunities you find will seldom lead to job and career satisfaction.
If you are floundering among too many possibilities and too few clear preferences, then stop. Go back and refine your self-assessment and career objectives. Eliminate those career areas that do not directly satisfy your objectives and fit your skills, interests, values, and preferred lifestyle. Once you have narrowed your search down to one or two (not three) of the career areas, continue your job search.
You must focus on no more than two types of positions in business for several reasons. First, employers are not interested in hiring someone who is shopping around for a career. The surest way to receive a rejection letter from a prospective employer is to indicate your willingness to do anything. Companies do not hire business professionals to do anything-they hire them for their particular skills, to accomplish specific tasks.
Second, no matter how much time and energy you think you have to devote to the process, it will not be enough to explore more than two areas. Your time and energies will be drained before you can effectively explore your second career preference. You say, "Not me!" Chances are you are wrong; but even if you are not, it means many hours each week of unsuccessful, dissatisfying experiences.
Third, a job search is emotionally demanding. The ups and downs and usually there are many more downs-play havoc with your emotions. The ambiguous and uncertain outcome of many efforts often makes it difficult for you to relax. Many people experience high levels of stress, sullenness, and even depression and anger while looking for a job. Do you really need to lengthen the process by looking everywhere, refusing to focus your efforts and ignoring your preferences for fear of missing an opportunity that probably will not satisfy you anyway?
SELECTING THE INDUSTRIES AND COMPANIES YOU PREFER
Once you have focused on one or two career areas, you must select the specific industries and companies to approach. Informational interviews; "networking" with friends, relatives, alumni, and other professionals; and extensive library research on the industries and companies of interest will help you make your selection. Many of the above-mentioned job search books include resource sections on how to learn more about specifics of an industry and company. Another book that is useful in this regard is Self-Assessment and Career Development by John Kotter, Victor Faux, and Charles McArthur (Prentice-Hall, 1978), particularly the bibliographies to chapters 2-13 and the appendix sections. Some useful resources include trade or professional associations for the industries of interest (e.g., the American Bankers Association), trade publications (American Banker), related publications (The Wall Street Journal), and corporate annual reports.
Your pre job interview's explorative process may overlap with the actual job interview process. As you learn more about specific industry and company characteristics, you frequently generate job leads which can turn into job interviews. Informational interviews, networking with friends and associates, and library research should be continued even after job interviews have started; this will reduce the likelihood of the job search process coming to an unexpected halt should job interviews not turn into job offers.
What about employment agencies, newspaper ads, executive search firms, and so forth as a source of job leads? Certainly all sources of job leads are potentially valuable. Several of the job search books mentioned earlier discuss various sources of job leads in detail. We find that employment agencies and newspaper ads are of limited use in securing professional business employment. While you may certainly use such sources to augment your job search activities, they should never replace informational interviewing, networking with friends and acquaintances, and library research as a way to learn about prospective employers.
Your Job Search Tools
The tools of a job campaign are the resume and cover letter and your job interview skills. Examples to assist you in writing and designing your resume and cover letters can be found in the recommended job search books. These books also provide advice on handling interviews. If you prepare these three things nicely, you can always be in the top contenders’ list for the job. These are the tools to sell yourself to the employer.
Is the Salary a Fair Offer?
Among all the attributes of a particular job in business, the salary offered is probably the most frequently discussed among job seekers. Interestingly, nearly 50 percent of all people seeking professional careers in business who receive multiple job offers end up choosing a position that is not the highest salary offer. This is because salary should not be the prime reason for selecting a position. On the other hand, the salary offered is an implicit statement of worth and is one of the important factors leading you to choose one opportunity over another.
These figures allow you to compare your job offer to the offers others may be receiving in the same and different career areas. However, many factors can affect an offer, including a graduate degree, years of work experience, the nature of the work experience, the geographic location of employment, the current supply and demand for personnel in the career area, and the particular industry.
As a simplified rule, an MBA degree is worth from $3,000 to $8,000 per year more to an employer than a BA or BS degree. Each year of full-time business work experience up to about five years is worth $700 per year more in an initial salary offer for an entry-level position. Up to three years of work experience that is directly related to a position is worth approximately $1,200 per year of experience toward an entry-level position salary. For more than three years of experience, higher-level positions with higher-level salaries are typical.
The cost of living and desirability of living in different geographic areas also affects salary offers. Employment offers in large cities in the Northeast and on the West Coast are usually 10-20 percent higher than comparable employment offers in other locations, such as smaller cities and rural areas. You can refer to a general salary guide, such as the American Almanac of Jobs and Salaries by John W. Wright (Avon Books, 1984), to estimate the appropriate salary for particular locations.
While the supply and demand for professionals in a particular career area affects salary, the specific dollar value of the supply-demand effect in a particular career area and year is difficult to estimate. Reasonable projections are contained in the Almanac of Jobs and Salaries.
Making Your Choice
The key to evaluating a job offer and selecting a position in business is, knowing what you want and whether or not a particular employer is likely to provide it. Your self-assessment and career goals together with the information you have been able to gather about the particular position and company should provide the base on which you can make your decision.
First, find out as much as you can about the job being offered-what tasks are to be performed, with whom, under whose supervision or control, and in what organizational environment. If possible, have several interviews with your future boss and other individuals with whom you will work before you accept a job offer. These meetings will allow you to systematically explore whether or not a particular job is right for you.
Then, consider the likely flow of career positions, salary increments, and job responsibilities over time. If a high initial starting salary is to be followed by very small salary increments, the attractiveness of the offer is reduced. Conversely, a highly prestigious position may have little or no career-progression possibilities, making it a dead-end job. Or, much-sought-after work in a specialty area or specific market or on a particular new product may change rapidly if the product-market area experiences unfavorable sales or profits.
The process of evaluation and choice is filled with emotional ups and downs. Therefore, you may find it helpful to evaluate each position through use of a self-administered questionnaire after each job interview. This will help you avoid overreacting. The questionnaire should be designed to reflect your chief concerns about career choice. Systematic use of such questionnaires allows you to track how you perceive various employers throughout the job search.
Choosing one job over others involves saying no to one or more companies. Rejecting an organization is more difficult than it sounds. Some people suffer through weeks of painful deliberation-just to avoid making a choice. And after they have made the decision, they often feel down about the opportunities they passed up. Remember that such post-decision depression is common; try not to let it prevent you from making the right decision.
Making a career choice is just one choice among dozens that you make over the years. If it does not end up being as rewarding a choice as you first thought, you must simply explore other options-with your current employer and superiors as well as with other firms. Choosing a position in business is just one step in the process of managing your career.
Career Mobility
A final factor to consider in selecting a career area and choosing a position within it is the relation of that career area to other areas. The linkages among the finance-related careers (commercial banking, securities analysis, investment banking, corporate finance, private accounting, and public accounting) are fairly strong. The linkages among marketing-related careers (product management, advertising account management, communications and public relations, and sales and buying) are moderately strong, but less common than among finance-related careers. The human resource management and systems analysis areas have few linkages to other areas. These are fairly specialized, technical career areas that offer limited career mobility to other functionally based career areas. However, mobility within these areas is substantial. The business consulting area links well to four career areas-investment banking, public accounting, systems analysis, and human resource management-and weakly with all other areas. Because of the nature of business consulting activities, individuals with particular expertise and strong communications skills can enter business consulting, and business consultants can often leave consulting for other career areas.
