Genotrope’s JobHacks

So you have made it through the interview process and companies are checking your references. Now is the time to decide which opportunity is the best for you.

Keeping in mind that logical decisions are preferable to emotional ones, having a structure to evaluate opportunities will minimize the emotional impact. Once you have an offer in hand, there is usually a time frame attached and now the pressure is building.

First of all, you can only take one job, so collecting offers only burns bridges and potentially limits your options in the long run. Every offer you reject will leave the hiring manager with a negative last impression. You will go from the great candidate that professionally took themselves out of the running, to the candidate that turned me down. Remember, it is an emotional event for the hiring manager as well. This will become important when you are interviewing at another start up in two years and there is the same manager you previously turned down.

A common problem is thinking that some factor will make the decision for you, such as “an offer I can’t refuse”. This is a lame approach and is leaving the management of your career in someone else’s hands. It is great for the company that can buy you, but will not produce optimal return for you in the long run.

Be logical and evaluate the opportunity based upon what creates value for your career.

Create a Matrix containing: Company, Project, C0-Workers, Technology/Skills etc… Rate each one and the one with the most pluses is the logical choice.

If all the offers were the same, where would you prefer to work? If you worked for free, which company would you work for. When you can say that I want to work for company A and I will accept a reasonable offer from them, you are ready for the negotiation stage.

Deciding this before you are handed an offer will allow your negotiations to proceed more smoothly while maximizing the result.

Careers have momentum and direction. We call this Career Trajectory. After launch, the goal is to break free of the atmosphere where there is no friction. You all know someone in your field that has enough career equity that they can get a job anytime and anywhere.

There are different stages of a career which can be plotted over time. Each stage has different risk factors and variables associated with the job search and the evaluation process. It is a viable approach for any career, but our specific focus is the goal of working for emerging technology companies and start ups. The missile launch analogy being that in the early stage you can effect the outcome much more than in the latter stages. At one point there is a critical window of opportunity to reach beyond the pull of gravity and have the best and most sought after companies seeking your employment. Once that window has passed, the probability of correcting course towards the higher goal is limited.

For example, experience has shown us that between 8 to 12 years is the “career defining” phase. Whatever you are doing at the end of this stage will probably be what you will continue to do. In other words, if you work at big fortune 100 software company and after 15 years decide to move to a start up, the probability is low that you can successfully make the transition. The risk may be too high for the company building their core team. Some reasonable questions from the hiring company would be, why haven’t you worked in a start up before?..can you thrive in a less structured environment, and so on. The point is not that senior people cannot change, it is that making a hire at $80K has less impact than the riskier $ 120K mistake. Also, making a drastic change of working for a start up is much harder once life has given you a big mortgage, college tuition savings and the other things that constrain life decisions.

So, be aware of the fact that significant change to keep your career on the right path is more easily made early on and that once the rocket is well on it’s way to Pluto you cannot easily turn it 180 degrees towards another destination.

Tricycles are stable, but roller blades are so much more fun. Big Companies do not provide job security

Your value in the market provides your security. If you pay attention to building career equity, you can be secure with the fact that you can move on when you choose.

We believe that a start up increases career equity more than a larger company. Value is somewhat based on perception, and the perception in the market is that only the top 20 percentile quality people can work at a start up.

Data Points:

Working with people better than you brings out your best.

Which reference do you think will be more valuable? Paul Buchheit or Joe Blow from Acme Big Company?

You get more experience and have more accountability at a start up, which translates to more accomplishments.

Start ups are typically ahead of the curve with respect to up to date tools and technology. The more leading edge your skill set the less people to compete with and therefore more opportunities.

Bottom Line: If you are motivated to get up in the morning and get to work on your project, you are in a good situation. But for maximum career value, work in a start up.

The object of managing your career and your job search is to maximize Career Equity. Your value in the market place translates to the quantity and quality of positions available to you. The moves one makes effect Career Equity either positively or negatively.

The variables that effect Career Equity are the following:

A. Organizations you work for or have worked for.

There is a perceived quality associated with every company or organization.

The quality is measured by success, usually financial sometimes technical.

Due to the dilution factor, typically the quality of individuals at a large organization cannot be as high as a smaller one due to simple averages. Therefore, perceived quality is higher coming from a smaller successful company, especially as viewed by other smaller companies.

B. Individuals in your reference network.(opinions of you are formed in the workplace, business meetings, trade associations and interviews.) be mindful of the impressions you leave.

If you work with people better than you, you get better.

If you work with people of lesser abilities you sink to their level over time.

Known quality individuals increase career equity, ie.. my reference is James Gosling vs. a middle manager at DEC. You want the manager to think “I know your reference and respect his opinions”.

C. Accomplishments and Skills

The more current and leading edge your skill set, the more options you will have.

The most important criteria to a hiring manager is quantifiable accomplishments.

Smaller companies afford the opportunity for more impact on a product or accomplishment.

Focusing on Maximizing your Career Equity will produce a better caliber position and ultimately higher compensation.

Changing jobs is one of the most stressful events in our lives, ranking right up there with getting married, relocating, buying a home, your first child etc…

Having a plan and processes in place to find, evaluate and secure your next opportunity will minimize stress and the emotional roller coaster during the job change. Emotional decisions are not necessarily the best decisions, if one can make a logical decision and minimize the emotional impact, the results will typically be better and longer lasting.

Searching for a web developer job doing ajax will return this job.

Obviously it is not really the job that one looks for. A job and a job description are dynamic. What a manger wants today is not what they want tomorrow. Hiring one person in the group changes the requirements of the following hires. Focusing on a job will lead you to a lot of buzzword matched opportunities at companies you would never work for.

If you find the right company first, with compatible culture, bright people and interesting projects, the job will take care of itself. There will probably be several “jobs” that would be agreeable to you at a great company.