PEs are interested in men and women who know their own minds and know what they want in life. They are much less interested in suggesting opportunities to you or trying to help you find something of interest on the remote possibility that you might be qualified. Further, PEs are interested in you because of expertise you are offering in an area which they feel they are currently lacking. This might be in sales, it might be in finance, or it might be in general management. Anything you say that does not reinforce your image as the best candidate for the job will work to your disadvantage. Even if you speak ten languages, this skill will only blur your image if it is not directly related to the position you are seeking. Further, in a job campaign time your most important resource is limited. To be successful, you must concentrate your efforts on developing a single well-defined opportunity. You cannot afford to dissipate your energies by going after many different job goals simultaneously.
Finally, you cannot plan steps toward reaching a job goal until you decide exactly what that job goal is. There is one exception to this rule. Despite the fact that you have aimed at a single type of job and have prepared your job campaign accordingly, occasionally a PE will single out an accomplishment in your resume and ask whether you would be interested in a position other than the one you are seeking.
You will have to evaluate such an opportunity on its own merits. Even so, you should never establish more than one precisely defined goal at the start or allow a singular interest by one PE to redirect your entire job campaign. In short, spend some time deciding what you want, then go after that specific goal.
How to Establish Your Overall Career Goal
If you are like many, your next job is not the last job you will hold. It is one more milestone in your career. Before you can establish a milestone goal, you must establish an overall career goal. Each person's professional career goal will differ. A company president may aspire to be president of a much larger company, president of a company in another industry, or to start his or her own business. Anyone may even want to leave industry entirely and go into something else.
Regardless of your current or planned function or job level, you must establish an overall professional career goal. Once you do, you can begin thinking about what jobs you must have as milestones in order to achieve your overall career goal. Then you can focus on the job you want as your next intermediate goal and concentrate your resources on attaining it.
Many unemployed job hunters think that they can easily get a job if only they take a step down. This is a mistake. In fact, it is generally easier to take another step up than to go backward. If you try to get a job on a lower level or for less money, your PE will feel that there must be something wrong and will assume that if you have once worked at a higher level you will not be happy working at a lower one. Further, your PE will be afraid that you will leave the first time you are offered a job at your proper level. The same is true if you are a new graduate, willing to accept a position not requiring a college degree.
Going backward is an uphill battle. It is a battle you should not fight. You should always seek a job that builds on what you have done before, so that your career proceeds in a logical sequence. If you have not done this in the past, the time to start is now.
The Easiest Job to Get
What type of job is the easiest to get? The easiest job to get is one in your present industry, in an identical or similar function to the one you now perform, and in the same or a similar - size company. It is a job at the same level as or one level higher than the one at which you are now working, at a salary 5 to 20 percent higher than what you are presently earning. For a quick and relatively easy job hunt, you must take these five factors into consideration. A sixth factor, geographical location, you may or may not want to consider in your job-hunting campaign. If you are a student, it is the kind of job other students are getting... but you'll be able to get a better quality job of the same kind faster than others using the techniques in this book.
This does not mean that you cannot immediately increase your present salary by 25 percent or more, change industries or functions, go from a large company to a small one (or vice versa), move to a desirable geographical location, or jump several levels in responsibility. However, if any or all of these objectives are part of your job goal, you should recognize that they will make your search more difficult than "the easiest job to get." You will have to allow for a longer and more difficult Level
Changing levels is one area where you can jump big, within certain limits. These limits are that your last job should appear to lead into the new job you are seeking. For support you can use one or more of the following:
Salary level References (level and type) Title of individual you currently report to Number of people you currently supervise Responsibility (quantified in dollars) Title of your present job you should be able to find some support in these six factors. For example, you can probably drum up some high-level references (company president, congressman, high-ranking military officer) from your past. You should be able to figure out your responsibilities in dollars - the dollar value of the programs you are working on, annual sales, dollar value of the acquisitions you analyzed and recommended, or whatever. If you haven't done this before, the total value will probably amaze you. If your current title does not reflect your present responsibilities, make it so. I am not recommending that you promote yourself to a company officership. However, if your company gives a title such as "engineer" to everyone from a new hire on through the ranks, you should state your title according to the function you are actually fulfilling: project engineer, program manager, chief engineer, and so on.
What can you do if you are a student? What you shouldn't promote is your grade point average, courses taken or specialized programs. Does that sound wrong? Believe me it isn't. As soon as you refer to these standard items, you put yourself in that large group of job seekers known collectively as "the new graduate." You will be considered along with everyone else. Normally that's bad enough. In a recession year, that's awful. What should you do? Refer to accomplishments in part-time jobs, elected positions in clubs, volunteer work, and relevant classroom work. What sort of relevant classroom work? Marketing plans, research projects, studies, case analyses all count.
Do not volunteer any information that does not offer support for the job level you are seeking. That means that if you are a student, you don't need to state that your classroom accomplishments were done in the classroom. If asked, of course, answer honestly. As a rule, you should withhold exact information on references and salary until final negotiations. You can usually sidestep any other questions you would like to avoid by controlling the interview.
When you get down to final negotiations, you will have to furnish references, and you may be forced into stating your last salary. Make certain your references are of the same seniority or higher than the position you will report to. You will do nothing to help your cause if you are looking for a position in top management and offer as a reference a first-line supervisor. A cardinal rule is to avoid discussing salary at all; if you must. Make certain that your reported salary fits in with other job information you have given and is at most 20 to 30 percent lower than the anticipated salary of the position you are seeking. If you are shooting for even bigger gains, read on.
Compensation
Whether you are employed are not, it is always easier to take a jump up in salary, barring a major depression. If your goal is to make a really big jump in salary, do not tell any PE your present salary level.
You should negotiate salary on the basis of what the new position merits, not what you have made previously. Even if your goal is a moderate increase, you should follow this principle. If for any reason you are forced into revealing your former salary, be certain to include bonus, automobile, stock options, and other fringes as part of the total compensation package.
Once you have released salary information about yourself to a PE, you should recognize that you probably limited yourself to a 10 to 20 percent increase. But there are exceptions to this rule, and you are still free to try to negotiate whatever compensation you want. As a headhunter, I once watched a young oil landsman who was in great demand negotiate himself a 66 percent increase in salary. I also witnessed a much-needed professional turn down a 300 percent increase over what he had been making. In each case, the PE knew the candidate's compensation level. But these cases are exceptions to what is most definitely the norm.
Geographical Location
Geographical location, unlike the other five factors, is rarely negotiated. Still, it is an important part of your job objective, and you must give it some thought. If you are willing to go anywhere in the world to meet the other parts of your objective, that is fine. If you are not, you should decide on location before you get started. If you are after a certain location and none other, you will have to limit the target companies you select for your campaign. There is no point sending out sales letters to companies in the East when you know that you will accept a new position only in Arizona. I needn't add that certain garden spots are almost impossible to capture because of incredible competition, coupled with low demand. A little investigation at the beginning can save you much time and effort.
You won't need to bring up the subject of geographical location to your PE. Either the location will be self-evident or at some point the PE will say, "Would you consider an assignment in...? You should know the answer to this question before you begin your campaign. In this chapter, we have discussed:
Why you can't get a job until you decide what kind of job you want How and why you must establish your overall career objective How your next job is tied in with your present job The easiest job to get How to pick industry, company, function, level, compensation, and geographical location After studying this chapter, sit down and decide on your job objective in terms of the factors we have discussed.
