Congratulations! Your hard work and professionalism have won you several job offers. Now you have a decision that many people would love to face.
Complete the following exercise step-by-step. The process may be time consuming, but good decisions require careful consideration.
Step 1: Evaluate your career options at this point. Find number of job variables; Note down the factors that are important to you in weighing one position against another.
Step 2: Now rank each job variable by its importance to you. Do some careful and honest self-evaluation to decide which aspects of employment you value most. Would you endure a long commute in order to earn a higher salary? Perhaps you need a company that provides in-house child care, or perhaps being able to work outdoors is extremely important to you. If you decide that a factor is unimportant to you, rank it last or cross it off the list.
Step 3: Circle your top five variables.
Step 4: Open your mind to any options you haven't yet given full consideration. Returning to school, traveling, joining the military, or returning to a former position might be considered at this point; don't rule out any feasible option yet. If you think of another option, write it under Job Option 3, or create a Job Option 4.
Step 5: Finally, examine each job variable in light of each job option. Go to the Job Option 1 and across from your number one job variable. Mark them with a check, a check plus, or a check minus, indicating whether the job meets your needs, exceeds your expectations, or falls short of your requirements. Examine every job variable under Job Option 1 in this way. Do the same for Job Options 2 and 3. You may discover you aren’t sure how a particular employment offers measures up to one of your requirements. Mark with a question mark and be sure to include it on a list of questions to ask your contact person later.
Step 6: Now you have carefully considered what is important to you in your career, and you've also examined all your job options. Look carefully to each option. Which column has the most check pluses in your top five priorities? This option is probably your best.
Negotiate Your Salary
Discuss salary with your prospective employer only after other items have been firmed up, since this is likely to be the biggest stumbling block. Also, you don't want to give the impression that the salary is the most important aspect of your employment. You want the employer to believe you are genuinely interested in the job and its responsibilities. Don't ever accept a job without knowing the salary, however. Go into an interview prepared. Know how much you want to make and work toward that goal.
Before you discuss salary requirements with your potential employer:
- Research the salary range for the position you're considering accepting. Try to find out what this type of position pays in your area. There are several ways to do this. Trade journals will often do salary surveys for their industry; check the library for the current year's issue. Call trade associations. Ask others in the field. Survey the classified ads, which often list salaries along with job requirements.
- Try to find out what the person who had the job before you was paid.
- Decide how important salary is to you at this stage in your career. Will this job represent a good steppingstone or entree into the company?
- Remember that some jobs have flexible salaries and some do not. Try to determine into which category your position falls. Jobs requiring more advanced skills usually have more pay flexibility, since people's varied experience and credentials have to be taken into consideration.
- Consider the health of the local economy. If the economy is weak, you'll have less negotiating power. If the economy is strong, you'll have more clout.
- Assess the demand for your skills. If they are highly specialized, you may have an edge in negotiation. If they are more general, and shared with numerous other applicants for the job, you may not.
