This is going to be a rather off theme blog for the site, but stick with us on the next couple of posts since you might find them useful in the future. We have been looking at contracts recently and have talked with a lot of other people - friends, colleagues, HR people, and people looking for their next contract or job. One the things often discussed is what do people look for in a contract or job and how can you compare them; With some people its all about the money, others the company and tech-stack they are using; More family orientated people may be more concerned with work-life balance and location to facilitate school-run’s and other commitments. Every person is unique and what they are looking for can change from time to time and their life-stage/personal-circumstances.
Where to start
Where do we start when we want to compare a job offer with a current job or competing job offers. We do suggest that looking are more factors than just the money.
The first task is to generate a list of factors which may have a bearing on whether or not you should take the role. Some of these factors may form the basis of questions from you in an interview or in the offer negotiation - and remember it is a negotiation.
So what factors do we consider ? These are the ones we currently use - but its up to you which ones you want to consider:
| Factor | Description |
|---|---|
| Financials | Money is important - so how does this compare to your current salary and also to the industry norms (google for it they are published). |
| Training | Is training important to you - if so how much will be provided, how regular, and is there a commitment to on-going training and skills updating. |
| Responsibilities | Will you have more responsibilities than you currently have - are you looking for more responsibility, the same level or less? |
| Brand-Name | Some companies have higher profiles and ‘coolness’ than others - is that important to you or your career? |
| Career Plan / Progression | A career is a progression, and despite what you make think it needs to managed by you. That said most companies have formal career plans and we suggest it is important to know what theirs is and how it could affect your career. |
| Work-Life-Balance | For some this is important, for others not |
| Benefits - Pension | How big is the employer contribution? and how much can the employee contribute and how flexible is it. How good is compared to industry norms. |
| Benefits - Health cover | Is a health plan provided … if so what is the cover, what are the limitations and does it also cover partners and children. With partners and children coverage to what degree are they covered - are all children covered or a limited number and is cover 100% (some may only cover 50% of costs for partners and children). How good is compared to industry norms. |
| Benefits - Life Insurance | Is it provided and how good is it compared to industry norms. |
| Benefits - Long term sickness | Is it provided and how good is it compared to industry norms. |
| Benefits - Stock options and shares | Some companies provide stock options and preferential shares. They can be very lucrative - but they can also be a bit of a gamble or bet; Someone I know remarked - share options are what companies give out when they are not prepared to pay the market rate for a role - it costs the company less in the short term. You will have to look at the company business model, the market and the company perception within the market to figure out how important this is as part of any offer. |
| Frequency Of Staff Turnover | There are a number of reasons why a company can have a high staff turn-over rate. It could be a boisterous market with staff moving for better circumstances, but it could also be because of a problem within the company - company is loosing market share, a toxic culture, poor management, stress and work-levels. Some companies publish the turnover rate, but searching news for company scandals/prosecutions and looking up people you know who work or have worked there; You could also look in glassdoor or linkedin for information and feedback. |
| Location/Commute | Personally I hate being stuck in long traffic queues or being crammed in a train carriage like a sardine. So is it important to have a short commute or not? If you don’t have a car is there easy access by public transport? This is fairly important if you have to do the school run and have to make the pickup/drop-off time. |
| Current Level Job Satisfaction | Everyone has ups and downs in any role and company. But be realistic on how satisfied or unsatisfied are you with your current role and how do you foresee the proposed contract/offer matching up to your expectations. |
| Team/People | What do you know about the people you could be working with? Are you going into a hierarchical or flat team structure, how does that match your expectations. Is it a big team or a small team, is the team totally self-contained as opposed to totally distributed - does that bother you at all or is it important. |
| Annual Review | How will pay increases be calculated. Are they transparent Metrics/Items for Evaluation so you know what you will be compared against. |
| Glass Door Rating | Glassdoor is a good resource for looking at what former and current employees say about a company. That said, there is a high noise-to-signal ratio since there are a lot of unhappy ex-employee’s venting their grievances (or praise) about past employers; and companies have teams who try ’to manage’ the message give out by these social media sources. Don’t take what you see as gospel - but it is useful for getting ‘vibes’ about any potential employer. |
| Company Management | This is another one which doing some research on via the web, acquaintances. The question to find out is what is the management style: ‘Hierarchical’, ‘Flat’ for example, also is it run like a medieval fiefdom with a charismatic or despotic leader, or is it run along other management styles. Is the management associated with scandals, or known for exploiting its workforce. What it comes down to is what leadership style do you like and am comfortable with as well as what you would want to be associated with. |
| Company Stability | Similar to management. Some companies are in decline, others are stable, whilst some are on a slow or fast expansion cycke; Some people like a nice steady role with little chance of redundancy for example, others love the hustle and bustle and roller coaster experience of start-ups. The question is which profile matches your needs? Research of business papers and the news sites will provide this information. |
| Company Culture | All companies have some form of culture, and this will change with time and the stage of a companies life-cycle. Some companies are relaxed, others formal. Some companies have a big after-work drinking and social culture; Others really invest in training or encourage volunteering for charity work. Contacts, Glassdoor, the internet news sites and will interviews will give you some feel on what the culture is like. |
| GUT Feeling | There is a lot of research out there (goggle it) that seems to support how important ‘gut feeling’ is for people. Some researchers call it the ‘second brain’ because of the number of nerve cells the gut has. What does your gut say about the role? |
| Good For CV | Would this company and role be good for your CV? Look at it from the perspective of a subsequent employer and make your conclusions. |
| Tech Stack | So what is the tech stack of the work you are likely to be working with. Is it current, cutting edge, or really old? Does the company/role embrace technological change or only changes when it really really has to? How does this mesh with your style and personality? |
| Holidays/Leave | Who doesn’t like holidays, the question is are the number of days offered in line with industry norms. Are there restrictions on when you can take time off? For example if you are an accountant some companies do not like employees to take time off at month-end or other major business cycles - would that bother you? |
| Family Happiness | Family happiness is often an unmentioned factor in selecting a role. Your partner might not like one or other factors mentioned here about any potential employer, and family happiness should be considered an important consideration with any offer. So talk about the role with them and get their take/idea/feedback on whether they would like you to take the role or not. The is nothing worse in taking a role with a company to find out your partner is not happy. That said, it is your decision. |
There are other factors out there, so the important thing is to find out which ones have a bearing on the role and you consider important - the thing is you should consider more things than just money.
Scoring Factors
Okay, you have listed the factors you think are pertinent to the role - so what next. You need to assign a score to each factor. This could be a score out of 100 or between 0 and 1, the one we use is one between -10 and 10. A score of -10 means ‘definitely does not do, is bad’, 0 means ‘do not know a value or no opinion’ and +10 means ’the best, definitely has’; Usually you will have values between these extremes.
Once you have scored each factor, you then just sum them up to get a score you can compare against your current role or offers. All very logical.
All Factors are not Equal
Hang on I hear you say … not all the factors you mentioned can be considered equal. Some people think money is more imporant than say healthcare or holidays - and yes of course you are right. You can factor this in by ranking the factors according to your preferences and then assign a weight to them. You might give money a weight of 10 (or 20 or 100) and ‘gut feeling’ a weight of 1.
We tend to use a variation of the Eisenhower matrix of ‘Importance’ vs ‘Impact’. Some things you might consider important (say ‘company culture’), but in the long term might not have as much real impact on your life as say ‘healthcare’ (which if young might not consider impotant). So we would have assigned the weights according to the following Matrix:
| Importance | Impact | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| High | High | 8 |
| Low | High | 4 |
| High | Low | 2 |
| Low | Low | 1 |
The weights are down to you.
In the end what you generate is a sum of the weight multiplied by the factor. This takes into account not only the factor being considered, but but also the relative importance you have placed on each factor.
Conclusions
We hope you find this article useful - but it is only a guide; At best it is something to get you thinking about why you want to take a role or how roles stack up.
We, as ever wish you a long and prosperous life.