Taking the First Job Offer Could Cost You $30k or More and Damage Your Long-Term Career

The Tempting First Offer

Headlines about the Great Resignation and the resulting hot job market are everywhere, and maybe they’ve lit the fire under you to make a career move. If you’ve been listening to me lately, your job search should be well underway.?I encourage my clients to take advantage of the current employment environment and right-size their compensation as I described in my first newsletter edition “How to Increase Your Salary at Least 25% When You Switch Jobs .” However, things can get tricky during salary negotiation.

Often job seekers are tired and spent, and it can be tempting to take the first available offer. You may hate your company, your boss, or feel insulted about your compensation. You may have pressure from your partner.?So be it.?Snap reacting and accepting your first offer can be disastrous.

Keep pushing for at least one more offer, painful as it may be to draw out your job search.?In this article, I discuss why accepting the first offer is a very risky move, and why you’re better off remaining active in your job search.

?Picking a Bad Fit

Money is key, we know that. Your goal may be to collaborate with a better team, find a better cultural fit, or work somewhere more aligned with your work style and personality. If you just take the first job that comes along, chances are you’re missing something.?I often find that when my clients rush to accept an offer, they are acting out of desperation or laziness and haven’t done enough due diligence on the company culture and fit.

You must do your research to determine whether you and the company are truly a good match.?If you just accept an offer without finding out enough about the work environment, you are setting yourself up for misery. Presumably, you are looking for a new reality that will get you out of bed in the morning, and you have to work hard to find that.

Before accepting an offer – and ideally long before an offer is on the table – find out about the culture, your new boss, and your co-workers.?Many professionals who become my clients call me after 3-6 months in a new job.?They are in a scramble, beating themselves up for not doing more research.?Now they are on the defense, not on the offense. ?

If you’re not sure how to properly diligence a company, here’s a hint: network. Network with people that work in the company or find someone that knows someone there. If you are 22 and want to use Glassdoor for market feedback, that’s great. If you are mid to senior level, you will only find valuable information about the culture by networking.

Your network is at least 10x what you think it is. Everything is discoverable including target company culture

You Are Likely to Leave Money on the Table

Getting a job offer is great – you’ve probably worked hard, and it’s nothing to scoff at. However, two or more offers are better.?Multiple offers give you leverage.?Let’s say you have one offer from Company A, and you know you really want to work there. ?They are offering you a $215k base. If you simply accept, that’s the end of your job search and you have a lovely new job. Great! Now imagine that the day after you accept the offer, Company B comes along and extends an offer for $260k.

Now, even if you don’t really want to work for Company B, you’re still bummed that you left a chunk of change on the table. If you have the second offer in hand before accepting the first, you can use the second offer to negotiate and end up working where you want to and getting paid better. This approach is not aggressive, just good business practices.

Why would a company hire you to negotiate their relationships if you fail in negotiating your own compensation?

Regardless of Company A’s offer, what is your market value? A farmer would never take produce to market – or plant it in the first place – without knowing its worth. Your job search should be no different. I helped a client determine his market value by networking him into 4 companies in the same space. He determined a tight range that he was worth: $250-$270k. We performed this market discovery before he started looking. If your potential employers know your market value, shouldn’t you?

After helping close to 1,000 clients, I’m comfortable saying that a job seeker will leave $30-50k on the table in this environment by not determining and negotiating their market value

Don’t Sacrifice Personal and Professional Growth

In her article “Don’t Get Burned by this Hot Job Market,” Nancy Carver of Volta People points out that “While a hiring manager or a headhunter may be focused on satisfying immediate needs now, you need to take the long view. Any move has the capacity to impact your career development” (1).?It may be tempting to take a job offer that pays more than your current salary and fewer hours, but your best interests are your own career path, not filling any old empty seat.?

It is your job to curate your career path carefully by selecting positions that will help you grow in the long term

Job search is an active process where you need to look out for the long term as your #1 priority. As Meg Ryan said in When Harry Met Sally, “Someone is staring at you in Personal Growth.” Meg played the long game and got the guy.

In this job market, you have a better chance of landing a new role that might be a stretch or that will give you a totally new set of skills and will pay up. However, those are not the jobs that will fall into your lap.?And while you may want to take the easy road, keep in mind that nothing lasts forever. Your next job is a gateway to your next job, and so on.

You Risk Creating a Red Flag on Your Resume

As discussed, sometimes job seekers accept the wrong job and realize this fact within a few months?That happens – it’s part of life.?However, it’s usually avoidable by working a little harder on a job search.?Leslie Drate from the Evernote blog says, “Make sure to give yourself enough time to find the right job—it’s better than accepting the wrong one and having to start all over again in a few months when things don’t work out” (2).?Part of your job as a job seeker is to have the necessary conversations to make sure the company culture is the right fit for you long before you start your first day of work.

If you fail to do that and discover only too late that you hate the place and end up leaving within the first year, you are going to create a resume problem. If you’re in your early 20’s, great, move and learn. If you are older, do you really want to be labeled a “job hopper?”

Now that you are a bunny, what do you do? Include a short-term job on your resume??If you do, what do you say??How much resume geography do you allocate? Oh, and do you know who will disqualify you instantly for being a job hopper? Third-party recruiters. Why should they work harder to convince the company who is paying them that you are the perfect fit if you have job hopped and your competition hasn’t? Do yourself a favor and avoid this problem entirely.

Summary

Don’t take the first elixir offered to you.

(1) Carver, Nancy.?Volta People: “Don’t Get Burned by this Hot Job Market”

(2) Drate, Leslie.?Evernote “Your Step by Step Guide to Finding Your Dream Job This Year”