Strategic Job Hunting

Today’s job search tip is about your strategy and how you should approach a job search.

I completely understand that looking for a new opportunity when you’re not currently employed is a different situation than looking for a new opportunity when you’re still employed but I see so many people who approach them in the same way, that I thought I would offer some tips for those in the latter group.

I coach every candidate that I interview if I sense that they’re not focused in terms of what they’re looking for in their next move. Of the candidates I coach, I end up coaching about 30% of them out of the job I’m hiring for and into an entirely different direction.

I want to start with a perspective adjustment on your current situation. When people are unhappy at work, there’s a snowball effect. In other words, the moment the discontent begins, it grows exponentially over months until you’re miserable and feel as if you have to leave immediately because you’re in a soul crushing situation.

I want to tell you that in the vast majority of cases, you are the one who has created that exponential unhappiness and feeling of soul crushing. It’s human nature to look for validation of our feelings. So even if the event that initially made you unhappy is valid, your mind started to look for things that would validate your feeling that your manager or company are terrible. Stop doing that. The only person suffering is you.

That’s true even if that event was that you were put on a PIP. Look, I’m as viscerally unhappy with HR intervention as anyone else. But that’s visceral and therefore a feeling. You need to set your feelings aside and be more strategic. Believe it or not, there is usually some (or a lot) of value in a performance improvement plan. Even if you intend to leave the company to pursue other opportunities, you should embrace the plan and follow it. In the worst case scenario, you’ve bought yourself some time (and more paychecks) in your current company. In the more likely scenario, if you’re genuinely open, you will learn a few things about yourself and realize that there are some things that you can do better WHILE you’re pursuing other opportunities. More importantly, you will not create that exponential growth of misery for yourself. Be smart and? bide your time. And look, even if your company or your manager stink, you don’t have to. Personally, I prefer leaving a company knowing I did the best job I could. I gave one terrible boss 3 weeks notice because I knew that’s how long it would take me to close every single open position I? was working on. I also knew that I could have given him 2 months notice and he still wasn’t going to find someone to truly replace me and all the value I brought to his team. And you know? what? I did fill every single position I was working on before I left. Not for him or for the company, but for myself and I? felt GREAT about it.

That said, let me move on to the actual job search part. You HAVE a job right now. There’s no reason to rush into another position. Take your time and be thoughtful.

Create a list of the things that are most important to you and list them in order of importance. That list could have 8 to 12 things on it depending on which stage of life you’re in. Do NOT compromise on the top 4 to 6 items on that list. If you do, you’re just setting yourself up for another unhappy employment situation and you will have done it by design. That list can contain things like; remote work, excellent benefits, growth opportunities, short commute, work/life balance. Those are just some examples. Take your time and be thoughtful about creating your list. This process should take days or weeks, not hours.

The next thing that you should keep in mind is that looking for a new position is the ONLY opportunity you have to pick your manager. That should be top of mind when you’re going through the interview process with different companies. Ask hiring managers as many questions as you have to in order to determine if their values align with yours. Good managers like being asked smart, meaningful questions so don’t be shy. They also welcome the opportunity to learn more about you as a person through the questions that you choose to ask. If a manager seems annoyed by your questions, you have your answer. Move on.

Lastly, pay attention to the questions that you’re being asked through the interview process because those will tell you a lot about a company’s culture. Are they asking you questions that are reasonable relative to the scope of the role? Are they asking you questions about you and your background in a way that suggests that they’re genuinely interested in you, or are they just digging for skills without context? This one is really important: how many people is a company scheduling you to meet with? An excessively long interview is a sign that no one in the company is actually empowered to make decisions. That is a very, VERY bad sign. You should not be meeting with the hiring manager’s boss unless you’re interviewing for a director level role or higher. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve fallen in love with the hiring manager. If you’re interviewing with their manager, RUN! That manager you fell in love with has no power and is not actually going to be your manager.

To summarize: don’t run FROM your current job. Take your time and find a great opportunity for yourself. The situation that you’re currently in probably isn’t as intolerable as you’re making it out to be so be strategic focus on a long term plan for achieving the things that will make you happy and fulfill you.

I hope this was helpful. Stay tuned for another tip on Monday. ? ?