4 reasons to reject or accept a job offer

On August 29, 2022
4 reasons to reject or accept a job offer

Question

The last two times I accepted a job I soon regretted it. In both cases I was happy with the money, I liked the manager, and the job seemed a fit. But that’s clearly not enough. You must have some rules of thumb about the decision to reject or accept a job offer. What are they?

Nick’s Reply

accept a jobIt would help to know what happened at those two jobs that led to regret. If the reasons were the same, then you may have the problem right there. But even if that’s the case, I’m more concerned about your criteria for accepting a job. They’re not sufficient.

Insufficient reasons to accept a job

The compensation matters, of course. Anyone that suggests money is not a prime consideration is lying, is a fool, or is trying to distract you from a low offer. And just because you like someone doesn’t mean you will like working for them (or having them work for you, if you’re the manager).

Then we have your third criterion: “job fit.” This is perhaps the biggest misconception job seekers have. You might check off every box on the job description, but that doesn’t mean you’re a fit.

How can that be? Well, virtually everyone I’ve ever polled laughs when I ask them whether, six months into a new job, the work they’re doing is what they were told when they were hired. The work almost always changes and evolves, sometimes so extremely that the new hire is doing something entirely different from what they expected. (Of course, this could be a good thing or a bad thing!)

So, what can you hang your hat on when deciding whether a job is right for you?

Necessary reasons to accept a job

As you have undoubtedly experienced, most employers take their time filling a job. Most job seekers, on the other hand, are rushed. They don’t consider enough criteria when making a decision to accept a job.

I’ll grant you the three criteria you’ve mentioned are meaningful. But all three are characteristics of a job opportunity that you will instantly feel in your gut. It takes no real effort to consider them.

  • I feel okay about the salary,
  • The manager and I hit it off,
  • The work described is right for me,

That may all be necessary to justify accepting a job, but it’s not sufficient. I think there’s more, but it requires some effort and patience.

4 criteria to accept a job offer

There are four other criteria you should apply to every job opportunity you encounter: the company’s (1) people, (2) products and technology, (3) finances, and (4) prospects. I believe if any one of these criteria is not met, you should walk away from the deal.

1. The people

The boss is just one part of the team, or the company, you’re joining. It’s likely that several other employees and managers will have a greater impact on your success (and satisfaction) at the job.

If the job is in Engineering, for example, it matters who is running Manufacturing and who is running Sales. If these latter managers are not competent, what the Engineering team designs may not be fully realized as viable products, and Sales may not be able to sell them. So you need to assess people at the company beyond just your boss before you decide to yoke your career to theirs.

Before making your decision to join up, ask to meet two or three managers whose departments are relevant to your own success. Also ask to meet two or three members of the team you’d be working on.

Accept the job only if the people in the company are competent, if not exceptional. It’s up to you to figure this out.

2. The products (and perhaps the technology)

Sure, you could do the job, but will you be working on products (or services) that are among the best in the business? Are the products competitive in the company’s market? Or is the company’s product line middling, if not low quality? Do customers rave positively about these products, or do they complain?

Does the company’s technology stack up well, or is it outdated? Will you be using tools at your job that enable you to work efficiently and to do your very best work? Or will you need to use bubblegum and baling wire to keep the machine working?

If the product line is not a shining light in the industry, and the company’s technology is obsolete, the company’s prospects probably aren’t good. Your prospects won’t be good, either.

Examine how the company’s products, services and technology compare to the competition’s. Unless you’re taking the job just for a paycheck, think twice before mounting a lame horse.

3. The company’s finances

I’d never take a job without meeting a finance manager or two at a company, or at least talking with someone that understands the company’s financial condition. This might seem irrelevant if you’re a machinist, or a programmer, or a production-line worker. But if the company has financial troubles, it may not be able to meet payroll. It may need to lay off workers before long. It may be unable to improve its technology, or afford to hire great sales people, and to compete effectively in its market.

If you’re considering a management job at a smaller company, ask for a brief meeting with the CFO. Ask about cash flow, debt and sources of funding for future growth. Even if you don’t know what these things are, the reaction you get will be telling.

At the very least, do an online search about the company’s sales and profits (if it’s publicly held). A simple search for any news articles could provide valuable insights.

4. The company’s pipeline and prospects

Invest the time to learn what new products, technologies, and business deals the company has in the pipeline. Does it have an edge over its competitors? Is it attracting new customers?

This is actually an amalgamation of the previous three criteria because we’re interested in the company’s plans for the future: What kinds of employees and managers is the company trying to attract, what new products and customers are in its pipeline, and how will it ensure its financial viability? What does the near- and long-term future look like?

If you want your future at a company to be good, you need to know how good the company’s prospects are.

Is this overkill?

In today’s fast-moving economy, when workers are more likely to jump jobs more often and employers are more likely to hire and lay off quickly, these suggestions might seem like overkill. Why do all that homework, ask for extra meetings and spend time thinking about all these factors — when you don’t plan to stick around a company very long anyway?

My answer is simple: You might get some big bumps in pay by changing jobs frequently among questionable companies. But there’s a lot to be said for working with high quality people that are producing exciting, desirable products that generate healthy profits — because that’s the path to a satisfying future for you and your employer.

A good salary, a boss you like, and work that matches your skills may be necessary for a job to work out well for you, but they’re not sufficient. Without meeting the four criteria I’ve described, I think you’re likely to be seeking another job again soon.

Accept the right job offer

What I’m really saying is, you should put a lot more into judging the place where you’re considering investing most of your waking hours. I find that the #1 reason people go job hunting is because they took the wrong job to begin with. Too often, they jump at what comes along — especially money! — rather than carefully choose the jobs and companies they pursue. The people, the products, the financial condition and the future prospects of a company will have a lot to do with your personal success.

I have no quarrel with you if you just need a job as quickly as possible so you can put food on the table and pay the rent. Take any job you must. But if you want a job with a future where you will be happy, successful and well-paid, it’s worth taking the trouble to figure all this out before you accept a job offer — so that you don’t have to go job hunting again any time soon.

What criteria do you consider important when deciding to reject or accept a job offer? Which of the four we discussed is most important to you? What criteria would you add?

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Do this before accepting a job offer!

On June 27, 2022
Do this before accepting a job offer!

Question

It’s always a relief when I get a job offer, but that’s also when I think I’m most vulnerable to accepting a job that maybe I should not. Face it, after 7, 8 or 9 interviews (common today), you just want to get it over with and start the job! You have said people often quit their jobs or get fired because “they took the wrong job to begin with.” I understand, but how do we avoid a mistake like that? Is there a strategy or a reminder I should write on my hand?

Nick’s Reply

before accepting a job offerYou can do something pretty obvious to avoid going to work for a questionable company or accepting the wrong job: meet everyone that will affect your success. It’s not really a strategy. It’s more of a tactic that will help you confirm a really good opportunity and keep you from getting a walk-on role in a nightmare. You shouldn’t write on your hand, but if you insist, write these two words: upstream and downstream.

Look around the company

In a classic New York Times article, “How to Become a C.E.O.? The Quickest Path Is a Winding One” Guy Berger, a LinkedIn economist, says that to make it into a CEO job,  “…you need to understand how the different parts of a company work and how they interact with each other and understand how other people do their job, even if it’s something you don’t know well enough to do yourself.”

That may seem obvious, but job candidates rarely take time to look around a company once they’re holding a brand new job offer. They’re understandably in a hurry to accept. While Irwin discusses a career strategy for becoming a CEO, I’m more concerned with the tactics necessary to be successful in any job — and that requires slowing down.

Before accepting a job offer

While I think job success is possible only when you pick the right company and job, what happens if you devote tons of time and effort to get a job offer, only to realize it’s wrong?

I teach all my job candidates to pause the hiring process when they receive an offer, and to re-start it on a new vector — one they’d never be able to insist on until they actually have an offer. For the sake of illustration, let’s say you’ve been offered a marketing job. Always, before accepting a job offer, take control politely but firmly and say this to the hiring manager:

“Before accepting your offer to start this job, I’d like to come back and meet three people who are upstream and downstream from the job you’ve offered: managers who run Sales, Product Development, and Manufacturing.”

(The actual departments will depend on the job you are considering.)

What’s upstream and downstream?

If you don’t get those meetings, you are likely to accept a wrong job, or to walk blindly into uncharted waters. Some companies will just refuse your request. Others will scratch their heads and ask why you want the meetings.

Here’s how to explain it:

“Those managers are upstream and downstream from the work I’ll be doing, and they will affect how successfully I can do my marketing job. Manufacturing is upstream from Marketing: They make what I must promote. Sales is downstream from me: They must rely on how I position our brand. Product Development is upstream — it creates features I have to communicate to the world. The upstream and downstream partnerships with Marketing affect how successful all of us can be. To make the commitment I’d like to make to you, I need to know who I’ll be working with, how they work, and what they expect from me. So I’d like to meet them now.”

An employer is more likely to consent to these meetings after it has made the commitment of a job offer to you.

Interview the employer

I know a sales manager who didn’t accept the job until he spent time in the warehouse — a downstream department whose work would determine customer satisfaction. He wanted to learn how orders were picked, packaged and delivered. He’d had bad experiences at another company where, no matter how much his sales reps sold, customers didn’t re-order because shipments arrived late and damaged. He also wanted to meet the accounting manager — another downstream job — who was responsible for receivables, because sales commissions aren’t paid until customers payments arrive.

So he interviewed the employer after he had their offer in hand.

Managers in other departments may have interviewed you during the hiring process, but did you interview them? Did you drill down into their business, meet their teams and perhaps spend half a day in working meetings with them?

No? Would you buy a company without doing exactly that — assessing its talent and management in a hands-on way? Then why would you accept a job without this kind of due diligence?

Your job success depends on others

Other people upstream and downstream from you will affect your job success dramatically — just as you will affect theirs. Meeting them and understanding what they do, and how, will help you decide whether to accept a job, and to avoid stepping into disaster and having to change jobs again soon.

This tactic also helps when you’re interviewing job candidates yourself — send them up- and downstream to other managers before you hire them. Is everyone convinced they can paddle in the right direction?

See also: How can I optimize my first day on the job?

Do you do anything special before accepting a job offer, to make sure it’s really right for you? Have you rushed into a job without due diligence only to find trouble waiting? What happened? What are some effective ways to help ensure you’ll enjoy success on a new job?

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Job-search blasphemy: Ask for the boss’s resume

On August 24, 2021
Job-search blasphemy: Ask for the boss’s resume

Question

60 years of experience have taught me that most managers are not qualified to manage. But most job applicants never check them out before accepting a job. Nor do they check out the managers several layers up. It’s a recipe for disaster and it’s so obvious. What are your thoughts?

Nick’s Reply

boss's resumeEver ask a hiring manager for their resume before you agree to a job interview? No? Why not?

This is the danger of applying for lots and lots of jobs. The more jobs a person applies for, the less due diligence they do on any of them, including on the managers they’d go to work for. When one of 20 job applications yields an interview, there’s no good way to do your homework in time. In fact, the smartest approach is to do your homework before you apply! (Don’t miss What if there’s no time to prepare for the interview?)

Who’s your boss?

I believe the failure to do such due diligence increases the chances you’ll go to work for a lousy manager, simply because the baseline probability that any particular manager is inept is significant.

“Nor do they check out the managers several layers up.”

Resume Challenge: Who’s the boss?
I invite managers, HR, career experts, even job seekers to give us one good reason why hiring managers should not provide their resumes to job applicants. Use the Comments section below.
Now you’re literally “taking this to the next level!” I mean as a job seeking strategy. Job seekers typically “research a company” before an interview, but their research is cursory at best. Here’s the key: “It’s the people, Stupid!” You need to know who’s your boss. (The other key is Never work with jerks.)

A prudent job seeker checks out the hiring manager who owns the job, and the bosses above the manager. Your success at a job depends heavily on the people that run the joint. While the conventional wisdom focuses on winning an offer, that’s not the goal. The goal is a job working for good managers and a good company.

So I agree with you completely. Check out the management stack before you invest time pursuing a job. Because if you don’t, and you invest heavily in interviews, and they make you an offer, you’re very likely to take an offer from the wrong people — and you will rationalize your decision simply because you put so much time into it.

Due diligence

Pick your target companies and managers thoughtfully. This is the time for due diligence.

Before you interview:

  • Ask who will interview you.
  • Ask who the hiring manager is.
  • Ask who is the manager’s boss and who their boss is.
  • Use Google and LinkedIn to check them out further. Be thorough.
  • Ask around — who knows these managers?

After you interview with the hiring manager, ask to briefly meet their bosses.

In Fearless Job Hunting, Book 5: Get The Right Employer’s Attention, I show how to conduct due diligence before and during the interview, and before accepting a job offer. These are just a few tips to help keep you out of trouble.

In the interview, don’t miss these points:

  • What must the company do to meet its goals? Is your job important in meeting these objectives? How?
  • Check out the tools that will be at your disposal. If they’re not part of the deal today, don’t expect you’ll get what you need later.
  • Who, in other departments, will affect your ability to do your job successfully? Meet them. Look for facilitators and debilitators—people that will help and hinder your performance.

From “Is this a Mickey Mouse operation?”, pp. 13-15

Have you seen your boss’s resume?

The alternative is to request what they demand from you — the bosses’ resumes. Does this all seem inappropriate and awkward? Perhaps even blasphemous? Contrary to how we’re programmed to (not) think when we’re job hunting, seeing your new bosses’ resumes would be a prudent, reasonable thing before you decide to throw in with them.

They want to know who you are before they’ll interview you. They want your resume. They want to talk to your former bosses (references). And you can bet they’re going to check you out online.

Maybe you won’t see their resumes, but by job offer time, make sure you know who your bosses are. Judge them all, because your success depends largely on who you’re working with.

Do you know who your bosses will be when you’re considering a job offer? Is it so unreasonable to want to read a new boss’s resume? How do you avoid taking a job with the wrong people? How else can you check out, in advance, who you’ll be working with?

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Behind the scenes of a rescinded job offer

On September 24, 2018

In the September 25, 2018 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter an HR worker reveals how a faulty HR process led to a job offer being rescinded after the applicant quit his old job.

Question

rescindedI work in Human Resources (HR). During our on-boarding process, we send prospective employees for a drug screen and run a background investigation and, if the job requires driving, a motor vehicle record (MVR) check. The background is launched when the applicant electronically completes an authorization.

We had planned on hiring a guy, when three days before his start date he had still not signed the authorization. So I ran the part of the background that I already had authorization for, and saw that his MVR was horrible. He had DUIs, super-speeder violations and more.

He’s already given his notice to his old employer, and we can’t hire him. I think he avoided signing the background authorization to hide a bad record.

We had to rescind the position as we don’t have any positions for a non-driver. I feel bad about this but I also think he should take some of the responsibility. What do you think?

Nick’s Reply

It’s important to consider the critical path of your company’s hiring process. That is, which steps are critically dependent on earlier steps being completed satisfactorily? And, who is responsible for those?

The critical path to making a hire

You don’t say explicitly whether you made this applicant a bona fide job offer. But I think it’s fair to assume you did based on two other pieces of information you shared.

  • You started the on-boarding process. You would not have done that without two critical steps being completed first. You had to extend a job offer and he had to accept it.
  • He quit his old job. He would not have taken that critical step unless the two aforementioned critical actions were taken first — an offer was tendered and accepted.

Please note that I’m not putting any specific order on these critical steps, though of course there is a necessary order. In any case, when you made that job offer and it was accepted, you had a contract. The deal was done.

A job offer is a contract

So, where does that leave your company and the HR person who is responsible for the hiring process? In a bad, indefensible spot, I think. You made and broke an agreement. A rescinded job offer is a broken contract.

Two other critical steps in this hiring path are:

  • Obtaining authorization to conduct a background investigation.
  • Conducting the investigation.

Clearly, both of these critical steps must be done before you can hire anyone. And the investigation — a critical step — brought the entire process to a screeching halt when you discovered the problems, as it should. That’s why that step is on the critical path to hiring, right?

Where you blew it is that you apparently jumped ahead. You made an offer — a contract — before obtaining authorization to do the background check, and before you had any investigation results. You acted without due diligence.

Why would any employer do that?

Due diligence

Due Diligence: Don’t take a job without it.

See Fearless Job Hunting, Book 8: Play Hardball With Employers, p. 23.

The applicant’s mistake is that he followed your lead. He, too, failed to perform due diligence to ensure your company was acting in good faith. He didn’t double-check to make sure you had followed your own critical path before he took the ultimate critical step: He quit his job.

Why would any job applicant do that?

No job applicant can afford to quit their old job, or to trust an employer or HR rep, unless they are certain they have a bona fide job offer.

A bona fide job offer

A job offer is bona fide when it is:

  • Neither specious nor counterfeit; genuine
  • Made with earnest intent; sincere
  • Made in good faith without fraud or deceit

You, as an HR representative, know your company cannot hire someone with a bad record. So, why did you make a job offer before checking? There’s no good faith when you lead someone to quit a job so they can start work with you — then pull the rug out from under them. (See HR Managers: Do your job, or get out.)

A rescinded offer is a broken contract

You said: “We had to rescind the position as we don’t have any positions for a non-driver.”

That’s not why you rescinded the offer. You rescinded because you didn’t do your job properly. The main fault is yours, and it could get your company sued. (For an attorney’s take on this, see Job offer rescinded after I quit my old job.)

You should never have made an offer before you conducted the investigation. The investigation came first on the critical path to making an offer, before the hire quit his other job, and before you began on-boarding the new hire.

Hire with integrity

A company should hire with integrity. It should follow a sound process that ensures a healthy deal will be struck that is good for both parties. That requires following a series of steps in proper order, to protect both parties. (See Protect yourself from exploding job offers.)

Here’s the critical path you should follow. Staple it to your office wall where you can see it all the time. Make sure everyone involved sees it in advance and signs off at each step. None of these steps should be taken until all previous ones have been completed:

  1. Make sure the position is open and fully funded with an appropriate salary and benefits.
  2. Conduct interviews.
  3. Decide your favored applicant is qualified and that you want to hire them.
  4. Conduct appropriate background investigation(s) after obtaining authorizations.
  5. Confirm that all information you need about the candidate has been gathered and logged.
  6. Make a bona fide offer in writing that includes all terms, signed by an authorized representative of the company.
  7. Confirm the candidate’s bona fide acceptance of the offer and terms in writing.
  8. Notify the candidate that the hire is confirmed and that they should resign their old job.
  9. Conduct your on-boarding process.
  10. New hire starts work.

The applicant was foolish to accept a job offer before confirming that your company’s critical path had been completed. He was disingenuous about not signing the authorization for the background investigation. He was downright stupid to quit his old job before ensuring the new job was solid.

So he, too, bears responsibility. Caveat emptor. But shame on you as the employer for letting the matter get to a point where you had to rescind the job offer.

The employer owns the hiring process

Your company is going to spend money to hire someone. You start the ball rolling and control the process. You own the process.

Don’t know how to properly check out a job candidate? See References: How employers bungle a competitive edge.

It doesn’t matter if your investigations reveal the candidate is an axe murderer. It’s still not his fault that you didn’t do your job prior to issuing a job offer. You failed to conduct due diligence (the checks and investigations). In this case, your process should have stopped dead at step (4.) above.

You tacitly if not explicitly encouraged him to quit his job and relinquish his pay based on your assurance (the job offer you gave him) that he could rely on you to hire him. No one deserves that. (If he’s an axe murderer and you don’t figure it out prior to making him an offer, then shame on you.)

Rescinding a job is not an option

Please review the 10 steps in the list above. Nowhere is there a “Rescind job offer” step. It’s a terribly embarrassing option. Rescinding a job offer is a last resort that you — and your company — will pay for with your reputations.

You need to sit down with your top management to develop a critical path to follow when hiring. The fact that you were three days from his start date when you figured all this out reveals a shocking problem at your company. (See Smart Hiring: A manager who respects applicants (Part 1).)

Rescinding a job offer that your company never should have made is unacceptable.

Is it ever legitimate to rescind an offer? When — and why? Have you ever rescinded a job offer that you made to an applicant? Have you ever had an offer pulled out from under you? Was it a legitimate action? What steps belong on the critical path to completing a hire and who is responsible for them?

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How can I find the truth about a company?

On April 27, 2015

In the April 21, 2015 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a reader wonders if it’s possible to figure out what an employer is really like — before accepting a job offer.

Question

You emphasize the importance of showing how you’d “do the job” in a job interview, and how you’d produce value for the employer. But that is in a perfect world. What about the real world?

How does one ascertain in an interview what the political environment is in a company? Most companies have some kind of political system, defined here as the messy arrangements one goes through to actually get something done.

What questions could one ask to determine the real political environment as opposed to the happy faces they present in the interview? They are all “team players” and they all want team players, but what are the rules of the game in that company? Is there any way to really determine this before taking a position? What questions could one ask that wouldn’t just generate “the company line?”

Nick’s Reply

under-the-rugOuch — please don’t accuse me of giving advice in “a perfect world.” If it were perfect, who would need advice?

Your questions are excellent, and there’s only one way I know to get them answered: Look under the proverbial rug! Meet the people who will affect your life and job at the company. Before you accept an offer, ask to talk with:

  • Others on the team you’ll be joining.
  • People who have jobs in departments that will affect your success at your job.
  • Managers who run teams that will interface with yours.

Don’t ask these people about the politics. Just ask them to tell you how they do their jobs and who they interact with in the company. Then hush and let them air their laundry. You’ll learn a lot. If you talk with enough of them (at minimum, one from each category and preferably three from the team you would join), you will get a very good sense of how the company really operates. (See also It’s the people, Stupid.)

Another good approach is one I try to use whenever I’m meeting with a prospective client. Have lunch in the company cafeteria and ask to be introduced to the people they work with. You will learn a lot while people talk as they are sipping soup or munching sandwiches.

If a company refuses to schedule such meetings for you prior to you accepting an offer, that ought to tell you something. A good, healthy company will be proud to show off its people, and management will be impressed that you’re willing to take the time to meet them before making a commitment. Frankly, I’m surprised all employers don’t insist on such activities before making a job offer.

In Fearless Job Hunting, Book 5: Get The Right Employer’s Full Attention, I explain how to expand your due diligence on an employer. This includes tracking down former employees of the company, and talking to its customers and vendors.

Does that sound like a bit much? The employer will check you out in detail — so it’s astonishing how little a job seeker will do to check out an employer! Here’s one specific tip from the book (pp. 12):

Check a company’s references. Talk with people who depend on the company for a living: attorneys, bankers, investors, landlords, and others. This will give you a community-wide perspective and also help keep you out of harm’s way. Explain that you are considering an investment in the company. (Your career is indeed an investment!) Ask for their insight and advice. Is this a good company? Why?

It isn’t a perfect world, so we’ve got to scrutinize jobs and employers closely. In my experience, most people who go job hunting do so because they took the wrong job with the wrong employer to begin with. Don’t make that mistake! Do your due diligence, and look under the rug!

For more about how to judge an employer, see Fearless Job Hunting, Book 5: Get The Right Employer’s Full Attention, which includes these sections:

  • Introduction: Don’t walk blind on the job hunt
  • Do I have to “kiss ass” to win a job?
  • How can I make up for lack of required experience?
  • How to pick worthy companies
  • Is this a Mickey Mouse operation?
  • Age discrimination or age anxiety?
  • How do I deal with an undeserved nasty reference?
  • Scuttlebutt: Get the truth about private companies

How do you examine a company’s culture and politics before you accept a job offer? Have you ever made the mistake of not looking closely before jumping into a new job?

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4 Fearless Job Hunting Tips for Thanksgiving

On November 24, 2014

In the November 25, 2014 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, there’s no Q&A. Instead…

pumpkinI used to take a break during Thanksgiving week and skipped publishing an edition of the newsletter so that I could cook, bake, and fill the larder with goodies for the holiday. But last year I started a new tradition and cooked up something different for you with the Thanksgiving week edition. Rather than normal Q&A, I’d like to share four tips from the latest Ask The Headhunter publications. If you find something useful in them, I’ll be glad.

The idea behind the new Fearless Job Hunting books is that finding a job is not about prescribed steps. It’s not about following rules. In fact, job hunting is such an over-defined process that there are thousands of books and articles about how to do it — and the methods are all the same.

What all those authors conveniently ignore is that the steps don’t work. If they did, every resume would get you an interview, which would in turn produce a job offer and a job.

But we all know that doesn’t happen. The key to successful job hunting is knowing how to deal with the handful of daunting obstacles that stop other job hunters dead in their tracks. Here are some excerpts from Fearless Job Hunting — and if you decide you’d like to study these methods in more detail, I invite you to take 20% off your purchase price by using discount code=GOBBLE. (This offer is limited until the end of the holiday weekend.)

4 Fearless Job Hunting Tips

You just lost your job and your nerves are frayed. Please — take a moment to put your fears aside. Think about the implications of the choices you make. Consider the obstacles you encounter in your job search.

FJH-11. Don’t settle

From Fearless Job Hunting Book 1: Jump-Start Your Job Search, p. 4, The myth of the last-minute job search:

When you’re worried about paying the rent, it seems that almost any job will do. Taking the first offer that comes along could be your biggest mistake. It’s also one of the most common reasons people go job hunting again soon — they settle for a wrong job, rather than select the right one.

Start Early: Research the industry you want to work in. Learn what problems and challenges it faces. Then, identify the best company in that industry. (Why settle for less? Why join a company just because it wants you? Join the one you want.)

Study the company, establish contacts, learn the business, and build expertise. Rather than being just a hunter for any job, learn to be the solution to one company’s problems. That’s what gets you hired, because such dedication and focus makes you stand out.

2. Scope the community

From Fearless Job Hunting Book 3: Get In The Door (way ahead of your competition), p. 6, It’s the people, Stupid:

FJH-3You could skip the resume submission step completely, but if it makes you feel good, send it in. Then forget about it.

More important is that you start to understand the place where you want to work. This means you must start participating in the community and with people who work in the industry you want to be a part of.

Every community has a structure and rules of navigation. Figure this out by circulating. Go to a party. Go to a professional conference or training program. Attend cultural and social events that require milling around with other people (think museums, concerts, churches). It’s natural to ask people you meet for advice and insight about the best companies in your industry. But don’t limit yourself to people in your own line of work.

The glue that holds industries together includes lawyers, accountants, bankers, real estate brokers, printers, caterers and janitors. Use these contacts to identify members of the community you want to join, and start hanging out with them.

3. Avoid a salary cut

From Fearless Job Hunting Book 7: Win The Salary Games (long before you negotiate an offer), p. 9: How can I avoid a salary cut?

FJH-7Negotiating doesn’t have to be done across an adversarial table — and it should not be done over the phone. You can sit down and hash through a deal like partners. Sometimes, candor means getting almost personal. Check the How to Say It box for a suggestion:

How to Say It
“If I take this job, we’re entering into a sort of marriage. Our finances will be intertwined. So, let’s work out a budget — my salary and your profitability — that we’re both going to be happy with for years down the road. If I can’t show you how I will boost the company’s profitability with my work, then you should not hire me. But I also need to know that I can meet my own budget and my living expenses, so that I can focus entirely on my job.”

It might seem overly candid, but there’s not enough candor in the world of business. A salary negotiation should be an honest discussion about what you and the employer can both afford.

4. Know what you’re getting into

From Fearless Job Hunting Book 8: Play Hardball With Employers, p. 23: Due Diligence: Don’t take a job without it:

FJH-8I think the failure to research and understand one another is one of the key reasons why companies lay off employees and why workers quit jobs. They have no idea what they’re getting into until it’s too late. Proper due diligence is extensive and detailed. How far you go with it is up to you.

Research is a funny thing. When it’s part of our job, and we get paid to do it, we do it thoroughly because we don’t want our judgments to appear unsupported by facts and data. When we need to do research for our own protection, we often skip it or we get sloppy. We “trust our instincts” and make career decisions by the seat of our pants.

When a company uses a headhunter to fill a position, it expects [a high level] of due diligence to be performed on candidates the headhunter delivers. If this seems to be a bit much, consider that the fee the company pays a headhunter for all this due diligence can run upwards of $30,000 for a $100,000 position. Can you afford to do less when you’re judging your next employer?

Remember that next to our friends and families, our employers represent the most important relationships we have. Remember that other people who have important relationships with your prospective employer practice due diligence: bankers, realtors, customers, vendors, venture capitalists and stock analysts. Can you afford to ignore it?

* * *

Thanks to all of you for your contributions to this community throughout the year. Have you ever settled for the wrong job, or failed to scope out a work community before accepting a job? Did you get stuck with a salary cut, or with a surprise when you took a job without doing all the necessary investigations? Let’s talk about it! And have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

If you purchase a book,
take 20% off by using discount code=GOBBLE
(This offer is limited until the end of the holiday weekend.)

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Can I trust Glassdoor reviews?

On September 2, 2014

In the September 2, 2014 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a burned employee sparks controversy about anonymous employer “reviews” on Glassdoor.com:

Have you ever written about Glassdoor reviews? Based in part on positive reviews I read about a start-up company on Glassdoor, I accepted a job. This company was nothing like it presented itself to be. It was terrible. Two months into my tenure, another position came up and I left. (My rule is never to shut down the job search process until I am sure I want to stay somewhere.) It still bothered me that this company was so crappy and I felt I had been taken for a ride.

I had lookeglassdoord at the reviews in Glassdoor prior to the interview and, though there were negative reviews, there were overwhelmingly positive ones as well. I was concerned about the negative reviews, so I brought it up in my interview. The recruiter stated that the office prided itself on being different from its corporate parent, and he felt I was a good fit. So I took the job.

Here’s why I’m asking about Glassdoor. After I quit the start-up, I continued to follow the company on Glassdoor and checked LinkedIn to see what kind of turnover they had. It turned out some of the people hired during my time have since left. Strangely, when a negative review shows up, an overwhelmingly positive one shows up within a week. Interestingly enough, two of the most current negative comments say that HR is posting its own positive reviews! The recruiter I worked with left after a year. So, are these reviews worth anything? What do you think?

Nick’s Reply

I’ve never written about Glassdoor.com because I think its business is worthless except as a generator of revenue. At best, this public database of anonymous reviews about employers is a curiosity. (I’m skeptical about any kind of anonymous reviews, even on Amazon.) The very idea of a website that encourages people to anonymously critique employers is ludicrous and irresponsible. I think its use is widespread because it makes money. That fact impresses HR executives and the public, leading them all to base business decisions on admittedly untrustworthy information.

Just think about it: Any disgruntled employee or job applicant can trash a company publicly. An HR department can spam Glassdoor, singing its own praises. (It seems this happened with the company you quit.) Honest comments will get lost. Meanwhile, Glassdoor has no incentive to keep it all clean by making participants accountable. (The argument for anonymity is that people wouldn’t post honest comments if employers knew who they were. Duh. That justifies graffiti?) They make money with every posting. That’s how Glassdoor is like the job boards.

In fact, Glassdoor is a job board. (Like LinkedIn, the site uses the honeypot of “community” to lure you into an ulterior revenue model. See LinkedIn: Just another job board.) Employers pay to post their jobs. Where does the job seeker traffic come from? Job seekers show up every day that Glassdoor dangles its clever bait: “Come share your reviews and salary information — anonymously. Then look at job postings!” The revenue model is built on unverified reviews and unverified salary data. (Imagine if Glassdoor’s business model were legitimate: It would pay you for your honest reviews and salary information.)

In other words, HR departments pay Glassdoor to subsidize anonymous ratings and salary surveys. You suggested that HR departments use fake IDs to give their own companies good reviews I don’t doubt it.

The obvious problem is that, when no one is accountable for praise or complaints, every comment on Glassdoor is suspect. Your experience with the terrible start-up highlights the problem. Anyone can create an account without anything but an e-mail address. If Glassdoor were to require true identities, it would be another story. But it’s not.

Along the same lines of Glassdoor is a new app created by the founder of TheLadders, Marc Cenedella. He basically lifted Glassdoor’s concept and made it more personal. Knozen.com lets people post anonymous comments about their coworkers’ personalities. That’s more of a bathroom wall than even Glassdoor. I can’t wait for more lawsuits.

Reading anonymous customer reviews when you buy a camera or a waffle iron is one thing — if you make a mistake, you’re out a few bucks. But when you’re checking out an employer, due diligence is crucial. We’re talking about your career and your income. Check credible sources. Your best bet is always to seek out current and former employees at a company to learn the truth — but make sure they have real names. In Fearless Job Hunting, Book 5: Get The Right Employer’s Attention, you’ll learn the powerful “scuttlebutt” method of researching even privately held companies — by talking to their competitors (pp. 22-24).

Here’s another important tip from the same book, in the section titled “How to pick worthy companies” (pp. 10-12):

Talk to the company’s customers and vendors
This is where you will find the hidden skeletons, and you will learn who are the real decision-makers in the company. This is also where you may find a hidden opportunity. It might not be with your target company, but with one of its customers or vendors, or with some other associated company. By extending your research and meetings to such companies, you’ll get a valuable, industry-wide view — not just of your target company, but of the work you want to do.

It’s not so hard to evaluate an employer. Invest the time to do it right next time, because anonymous reviews of employers can get you into serious trouble.

Is it real, or is it crap? The reader in today’s Q&A learned the hard way that, if information smells, it’s probably crap. Would you trust anonymous reviews and salary surveys to make a career decision?

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