CAREER TIPS - Comparing Job Offers

Comparing Job Offers

By Tom Wolfe

How do you measure success in career transition and job hunting? It starts with the most important measuring tool — quality. Will the offer you are about to accept provide quality of work and quality of life to satisfy you and your family now and in the future? Comparing-Offers219x292

Although quality is uppermost, quantity also comes into play. How much information have you gathered? How many people have you contacted? How many interviews have you had? How many offers did you generate?

Should you be fortunate enough to get multiple offers, which one should you take? There’s no way to know with 100 percent certainty that you’re picking the right one. Like every other major decision you make in life, you must live with the results to know for sure. Still, there are a couple tools you can use during the interviewing process to help pick the right job.

The BENCHMARK COMPANY and the DECISION MATRIX

Whether they know it or not, all job seekers begin their search with one job offer already in hand — from the “benchmark company.” The benchmark company is a model that represents everything you want or need. All opportunities will be measured against this one. The first step in creating that model it is to list your search criteria. Here are some suggestions:

• initial position
• future positions
• growth potential
• initial location
• future location(s)
• initial salary
• future salary
• benefits and perks
• working environment
• corporate culture
• training and development
• job satisfaction
• quality of life
• cost of living
• job security
• coworkers
• working hours
• relocation frequency
• travel
• resume builder
• stock/equity

Some might not matter to you at all and others might be missing. The content of your list is a matter of personal choice. The second step is to list them in order of importance. Certain factors are normally weighted more heavily than others. For example, would you give up job satisfaction or growth potential for something else on your list?

“Should you be fortunate enough to get multiple offers, which one should you take? There’s no way to know with 100 percent certainty that you’re picking the right one.” The third step is to put the ideal situation next to each attribute. Although you should dream a little in this exercise, it’s best to stay somewhat grounded in reality. After all, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and the sultan of Brunei have already staked out their turf.

The final step is to pretend that the benchmark company has offered you the perfect job. Congratulations! Your first offer! Somebody wants you! Now that that’s on the table, you need the second tool — your “decision matrix.” It will help you compare options and make a (mostly) rational choice. For the sake of discussion, let’s assume that the following eight items represent attributes of your perfect opportunity, in relative order of importance.

• growth potential
• job satisfaction
• quality of life
• compensation
• initial location
• future location(s)
• coworkers
• benefits

Design a chart listing the attributes in the first column and their relative weight in the second column. Then use the next three or more columns for the companies where you’ll be interviewing. Assign the first company column to the benchmark company. The “weight” column represents the maximum possible for that attribute, so assign that score to the benchmark company.

This is your decision matrix. As you interview with companies, fill in the blanks and add up the scores.

“The true value-added comes from deciding what’s important to you, keeping track of the data, comparing apples to apples, getting organized, and trying to stay objective.” Congratulations! With four offers on the table, including the fictitious
benchmark company, you have some choices to make. Based on the scores, your choice is easy —Company Z, right? Maybe not. Look how close the three scores are. Also, compare each score to the benchmark equivalent to see how they stack up. Sometimes maximum scores in lower weighted attributes can skew the outcome. For example, although Company Z excels in the last five criteria, it fares relatively poorly in the areas most important to you. Conversely, Company Y has the lowest total, yet gets the maximum in your most important areas.

Here’s another way to use this tool. Notice the highlighted areas on the matrix. They indicate areas in which the attributes are noticeably out of line with the benchmark. Could they be deal breakers for you? The best test is to ask yourself, “Is this deficiency tolerable, or better yet, fixable once I join the company?” If the answer is yes, then it’s not a deal-breaker. If the answer is no, and it is relatively important to you, then walk away from the offer.
In the end, even after all of this objective and analytical decision making, guess what’s probably going to override the numbers? Gut feel. Subjectivity. Instinct. Human emotion. So does that mean the entire benchmarking and decision matrix design has been a waste of time? Not
at all.

The process is more important than the numbers. The true value-added comes from deciding what’s important to you, keeping track of the data, comparing apples to apples, getting organized, and trying to stay objective during what is a highly subjective and emotional time of your life. Pay attention to the final numbers, but pay more attention to the process that produced them.

© 2005, Tom Wolfe; all rights reserved. Used with permission of the author.

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