Balance of Power

Hello! 

I hope you've had a great week.

I'm sorry for the delay in getting this instalment published! I had some annual leave over the school break and have been suffering with the most recent covid version ever since.

Every Friday, I run a career advisory session. 2 of the questions I covered for people today, were about assessing, negotiating and ultimately deciding whether to accept or turn down a job offer. It's something we all have to do at some point in our career, so I thought it'd be helpful to share a few thoughts. 

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Getting your priorities straight.

The first step in being able to assess a job offer, is knowing what you are looking for. It sounds obvious, but if you haven't written down what your priorities and red lines are, it's impossible to assess an offer in any meaningful way. What are you assessing it against?

I recommend starting any job move process with a clear list of what you're trying to achieve.

• What's most important for you in your next role?
• What are you willing to compromise on and for how long?
• What are your red lines (your non-negotiables)?

A good place to start is by taking stock of your current / most recent job. And think through lenses such as how well:

• the day to day time allocation plays to your strengths;
• the environment & people bring the best out of you;
• the industry fits your passions;
• the compensation & work-life balance supports your lifestyle aspirations;
• the path forwards is clear & unlocks your long term goals.

This will give you a simple framework against which to assess any offer.

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An offer is the mid point of the interview the process.  

During a series of interviews, you'll naturally pick up information that answers how well that role, organisation & immediate team fits your priorities. However, I guarantee that you will still have many blanks to fill in even when an offer is made.

The key here, is to realise that no organisation readily pulls offers that aren't accepted immediately.

Having helped 5,000+ companies hire, I see how much effort goes into finding the right person and getting to offer stage. Trust me when I say that if a company has made you an offer, they want you to join the team and will happily spend more time with you answering your questions and getting to know you better.

So an offer is not the end of an interview process. Rather, it's the mid point when the balance of power transfers from them to you. 

My top tip is to ask to go and spend more time with the team. This always comes across well (you want to get to know your prospective colleagues better - always a positive sign to any hiring manager).

Offer to take 1/2 a day or a day off within the next 1-2 weeks:

• Suggest lunch / coffee with your prospective new boss so you can get to know each other better outside the formality of an interview setting.
• Ask to spend time with key stakeholders who you didn't get much time with during the interviews.
• Sit with HR to run through any contract / package questions. 

Ultimately, fill in your blanks. Either via direct questions of just by spending more time talking to more people, you'll work out whether the opportunity is a strong enough fit with your priorities and also whether it crosses any red lines or involves too many compromises.

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Getting to offer stage.

Your CV/Resume is not a career chronology. It's a document to get you into interview.

Having sat with 1,000s of hiring managers and witnessed them putting great candidates into the "no, not interviewing" pile simply because the CV/Resume was constructed incorrectly, helping people understand how to maximise their chances of interview through their CV writing, has become a huge passion of mine & a focus of my expertise.

I find it incredibly frustrating when great people don't get a chance to interview, simply because their CV/Resume didn't resonate in the 8 seconds the hiring manager spent scanning it before their mind was made up (sad, but true!)

If you're hoping to enter into interview processes over the next 12 months, or if you're actively pursuing a job move now, you're welcome to benefit from my CV/Resume support here.

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I hope you enjoyed this edition. Wishing you a great weekend ahead.

All the best,

Rich

ps. I even forced myself to do a short video (it's on the page linked above) to explain how my CV/Resume support works - turns out that my long term career goal of becoming a movie star, will sadly have to have a rethink :-)