Seven essential considerations when you choose your next employer

Image courtesy of Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Moving to a new role can be a daunting, exciting and even life-changing experience. At its best, the process of finding the right employer is a cross between participating in a dating game and completing a jigsaw puzzle. The aim is to find the best fit using educated guesses.

The challenge is that the search for employment does not start for everyone in the same place. For some, the imperative is urgent, for others the approach is much more deliberative and for others it is purely opportunistic. Notwithstanding, the starting point, even the smallest amount of additional consideration can improve the likelihood of outcomes. Surprisingly, the things that make the biggest difference are nuanced changes in the way people think and absorb information that they are told.

To narrow the odds and improve results, set out below are seven essential considerations when you choose your next employer.

1. What can you learn from the informal pre-interview?

Do you routinely contact recruiting managers prior to submitting your curriculum vitae or completing an application form? If not, why not? The opportunity to ‘have a conversation’ with a named person about the role, is a proverbial no-brainer. These informal interviews put you in the driving seat and can be an absolute treasure trove of information about the employer, organisational challenges the role being advertised and the team that you will be joining. To make the best of these opportunities, prepare your questions in advance and be clear about the three or four things that you absolutely need to know.

2. Is the interview process all about them and not about you?

Attending an interview is not a commitment either on your part or that of a potential employer. However, what it does do is provide an opportunity for you to get a feel for the psyche of an organisation. Interviews expose an organisation’s thinking as well as how they perceive their employees. Interview questions especially, can be very revealing. Over-emphasis on ‘working with difficult stakeholders’ or, ‘dealing with conflict’ can foreshadow toxic environments that you may want to stay away from. Similarly, when questions focus more on what the potential employer expects, rather than an appreciation of your development needs, that can imply little real interest in investing in your potential.

3. Do they have ready answers to simple questions?

It is custom and practice at the end of an interview, to be asked if you have any questions. Well, if they ask you, then have your questions ready. Be prepared to ask about the organisation’s challenges, its approach to leadership and what their employees would say about them. Feel absolutely no ways about putting them on the spot. Any employer should expect to be examined in this way, be able to provide ready answers and commend you for having the presence of mind to ask. Organisations that do not know what they look like lack self-knowledge.

4. How desperate are they and how desperate are you?

It is great when an employer expresses a genuine desire for you to join them. However, a complicating factor arises when desire morphs into desperation. This is because, desperation can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand it can be a sign that an employer sees you as a critical asset for the future or an indicator that they are grasping at whatever they can. If it is the former, it could swing the power pendulum in your favour, giving you the opportunity to dictate your terms. Alternatively, desperation can be a symptom of a dysfunctional poorly managed organisation, that doesn’t know how to make the best of what it already has.

5. What happened to your predecessor?

Sometimes a Google search can reveal a lot about your next job. Is your predecessor on LinkedIn? If so, where did they go? If it was to a more senior role, that could point to genuine career development potential — even more so if the move were achieved in a relatively short space of time. Also, look to see where your predecessor has moved to as that may indicate cross-sector transferability of skills. Clearly, none of this is an exact science. The wider point is that alongside other indicators, tracking the career progression of your predecessors could offer a useful perspective as to whether the role that you are applying for could lead to better opportunities downstream.

6. Isn’t it better to pick a manager than an employer?

Picking an employer is a guarantee of little. Let’s face it, the things that make a job fulfilling such as affirmation, nurturing, recognition, career progression and satisfaction will not be in your contract. Chasing the employer is a bit like a basketball player who signs for a storied franchise to ply their trade. However, once the move is complete, they discover that they are not just another fish in a pond, but the other fish are sharks. Far better, it is to pick a capable coach than a storied franchise. At least that way you know that your talent will be developed and your effort will be rewarded.

7. How much baggage are you taking with you?

I cannot remember how many times I have seen disgruntled employees move on to other roles believing that the grass will be greener on the other side, or that baggage from a previous place of work will find storage space in a new one. Finding alternative employment is not necessarily a fix for problems from your past. Better to take a step back and appraise where you are in your professional development and what may be holding you back, before deciding what to do next. Do not imagine for a moment that the solutions you seek will be found by exporting toxic habits from one place of employment to another.

In conclusion, the definition of due diligence is the exercise of care. It is a principle that applies or should apply to every aspect of life, including the search for future employment. Think about it, who takes a flight without being certain of its destination and what they will find when they get there? Likewise, the search for future employment is an exercise in assurance. Clearly, even with the aggregation of relevant facts and the weighing up of options, there are no certainties. But without them, there can be no confidence.