What do you want?–Job Search Lessons Learned: 12 Key Take-Aways (03)

Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty here. What do YOU want? Let’s get picky, but keep in mind, there are always going to be exceptions to the rules. Sometimes, you will not even be able to find out everything, so don’t get hung up on a lot of the details. I just want you to be thinking about this kind of stuff. What do you want out of the company, your manager, teammates, and your role?

Company

There are a lot of questions coming your way. This is to guide you on what you think about when you are trying to decide what type of company you want to be a part of. Some of these questions you can answer now, generically. Some, you will have to do some researching online (glassdoor.com has really helped me out, there is LinkedIn, the company site, and company social media). I have even reached out via LinkedIn InMail to individuals that worked at that company in the past to ask questions.

What [employee] size would be ideal? Is there any that is totally out of the picture?

• Small < 100
• Small-Medium = 100-999
• Medium = 1,000-9,999
• Enterprises ≥ 10,000

What are you looking for in the company / organizational culture? According to BusinessDictionary.com, organization culture is “the values and behaviors that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment. It includes expectations, experiences, philosophy, and values that hold the organization together, and is expressed in its self-image, inner workings, interactions with the outside world, and future expectations. It is based on shared attitudes, beliefs, customs, and written and unwritten rules that have been developed over time and are considered valid.”

That is pretty detailed. Let’s break it down a little.

• What are the vision and mission statements and the values? Can you get behind that and support it? This, of course, you can’t answer until you start interviewing and researching. That being said, I still wanted it here. This goes back to Your Story and how you want that to align with your future company.
• Is it more team based (sports can be an example) or more individual contributor (commodity sales) base. If it is team-based, does the team work well with other teams?
• Do employees truly understand and live the vision and mission statement, values, and goals?
• Are the employees engaged in those goals fully? Is everyone moving in the same direction?
• How is continued learning viewed? This can be college, professional certifications, industry seminars, and more.
• What is the dress code? Formal, business casual, smart casual, casual. (On a personal note, outside sales in a business suit in the Texas summer is something I will forever avoid. That was not fun.)
• Are there team activities outside of work? Lunches, dinners, happy hours, group outings, team building, seminars, and so forth.
• Are you going to be in an open office environment, cube farm, office, home office, hoteling, or road warrior?

Do you have a specific industry in mind? If not, is there a specific industry you want to avoid?

What is the commute you are comfortable with? How do you view telecommute? Don’t just think about miles, think about traffic time as well. It could only be 15 miles away, but if it takes you 45 minutes to get there, is that something you would be ok with? Can you telecommute part of the time, all the time, or none of the time? Me personally, I need to at least have the option. I work in IT and if there is not a solution for me to be effective at home with the technology of today, something else is wrong.

What would a preferred location look like? Most of these questions you can’t really answer until you start looking. What is important to you? Part of town? Do you have to have a certain restaurant near you as a go-to? I know we are getting further and further from cash, but if need be, do you need your bank nearby? If you have kids in daycare or school, how does that weigh into the location decision?

What are the working hours you are wanting? A rigid 8-5 or flexible 8-5 (you are not physically or metaphorically punching a clock)? Is it flexible working hours? Meaning, as long as you put in the time and make meetings, it doesn’t matter the exact time. If you are in a field needing on-call, do you have certain criteria around that?

What does time off look like for you? Are there certain holidays you have to have off? How much vacation and sick-time is your minimum? What if it is lumped together? In my humble opinion, starting out with two weeks of vacation should not be the starting point. It is definitely something you need to be ready to negotiate on.

Manager

What do you want out of your boss/supervisor/manager/leader? Write down what you are looking for and what type of questions only s/he can answer at the time of the interview.

Do you want a local manager, or are you good with a remote one?

Management style. This is tough to get a grasp on. First, what do you want? A micro-manager that closely observes or controls your work. Maybe a Laissez Faire style that allows employees to make most of the decision on their own and makes very few decisions on how things are done. Or somewhere in between? Do they adapt their style based on each individual employee or is it the same for everyone?

How involved are they? Do they meet regularly above and beyond the annual review?

Role

What do you want out of your next roll?…. I mean role. Do you want to be an individual contributor or a manager? Are you looking to be tactical or strategic? What type of work are you looking to avoid?

I used Microsoft OneNote to help out with this question. Start searching job descriptions for roles you want to do next, copy and paste each description on its own page in OneNote. Use the ‘To Do’ function and start checking off what you have done. Realistically, if you are hitting 80% or more of the job description, you would be considered qualified.

Then, take each line item and compile what you have done on one page. You can then use that page as you’re going through each role to ensure you are qualified. You can also use it to try and stretch yourself. Now, just because you have done something, doesn’t necessarily mean you want to do that again. So, on that one page, mark those with red and move them down.

You can also take those commonalities and update your résumé and LinkedIn profile to match.

So here is a question to the community:

“Within just one category, what is the most important item for you to have at your next job?”

Thank you for your time,