August 1, 2011
It’s been over a year since my big move: the new job, the new home, the new life.
And I’m reflecting on the career part of it now that we’ve passed the big milestone: the performance evaluation.
Having to pull together a comprehensive report of my own accomplishments was a chore. I hated it. I shouldn’t. It’s my opportunity to toot my horn because I work incredibly hard, well and above my job description with three times the number of people to manage and many more times the amount of work to shoulder than most, so I should have been jumping at the chance to rectify the salary situation.
You see, when I accepted the job, I wasn’t offered an amount that was commensurate with my level of experience and history of performance. While peeved, I wasn’t terribly surprised because HR doesn’t make offers based on performance unless you’re long on obvious achievements and come highly recommended by people they know. At least not this HR, as far as I can tell. While I’m a high-performer, it’s not obvious on paper, nor does my youthful appearance do me many favors in this department. As well, the industry, the role and the company I was dealing with isn’t known for a generous offer at this level. I did negotiate and came away with a single concession, but they wouldn’t budge anywhere else.
In such a situation, I used some of the following variables to figure whether I should stay or go:
Leave it:
– You’re confident you can close the deal elsewhere in a short enough period of time that giving up this offer won’t hurt you (financially, reputation/burning bridges)
– The offer is below your baseline (you should always know your baseline lest you take an offer below that and find that it hurts you more than it helps you)
– You have a competitive counter/other offer on the table instead
– The culture is a poor fit
Take it:
– Decent alternate offers aren’t forthcoming and the money is enough to live on
– You know there is room for growth (financially, the people you’d make connections with)
– The culture is a good enough fit that it’s a good stepping stone for the time being
– It’s a good company to work for and the experience will be valuable on your career path (in combination with the money not being so bad that you can’t live on it)
My considerations: it was near PiC, the offer wasn’t so low that I couldn’t knock their socks off and bring it up to my standard fairly quickly (I thought it’d be sooner), the job was bound to be interesting and blow the rust off my skills so I could more easily find something else if I weren’t happy there, and from my read of the economy, I was still looking at a prolonged job hunt over several thousand dollars a year if I was at all unsure about moving to the East Coast.
So I took it. (Little realizing the angst those dollars would cause my psyche.)
Several months ago, my boss and I had a conversation where we reviewed my goals, achievements and expectations, and performance to date. I broached the topic of an increase at that point and while they weren’t willing to budge at the six-month mark, they were on notice that I wasn’t letting the salary matter lie. That was Step One.
Throughout the year, I carried more than my weight and became the go-to person on several fronts. Aside from the incredible challenges within my own team, and there were oh-so-many, I worked across departments and with upper management on a regular basis. After several months, my role expanded far beyond the original scope and I’m now active at a higher level than any of my peer group who have been with the organization as long as or longer than I. None of this was easy, of course, and very little of it was fun, but I was bound and determined to win back my salary.
At judgment time: the value of recordkeeping
With that in mind, when my annual review came around, I drafted a self evaluation that laid out the expansion of my assumed responsibilities. It took weeks to get it right (the price of doing a stellar job here is you never have personal time) but that was critical. That was Step Two.
We had a conversation about my performance over the year after my boss reviewed and responded to my write-up and no surprise, was very positive about everything. Step Three: Boss then wanted to know my expectations with regard to salary. Because of Step One: On notice.
The end result of that conversation was that, on the basis of my performance and my initiative throughout the year, using my write-up which was fully Boss-endorsed and the assurance that I expect them to Make Right, Boss secured a very healthy raise for me bringing my salary up to a less embarrassing, and more liveable level.
I still can’t afford to indulge, I’m still budgeting carefully and half that increase will be going to bills, the other half will be going to savings but it’s a step.
*****
I’ll admit that I still have been second-guessing myself a bit ever since, thinking that I should have stated a number or pushed harder for a better increase. I feel like I dropped the ball when asked what my expectations were. I didn’t give a number and I should have. I know why I didn’t; I was asked but it was phrased as “will you quit if you don’t get [insert outrageous number here] raise” and so my response wasn’t to set an expectation as a number, it was to say that I expect I will get a better than average raise but I’m not a hostage taker. (After discussing with a mentor, this was somewhat close what I was advised to say.) Still, second-guessing a bit. Also, I do wonder if that careful phrasing works differently coming from a male to a male VS. from a female to a male VS. from a female to a female VS. from a male to a female boss.
And part of that second-guessing is an emotional reaction because I’ve gone a year on a lowballed salary.
I’ve been alternately angry and embarrassed all year about accepting that original number even though I thought I had made my peace with it in the first place. In feeling the pinch, I felt like it reflected poorly on me in so many ways: that it diminished me as a breadwinner, that it prevented me from carrying my weight in this household, that I was a poor negotiator, that I’ve failed in my career aspirations and taken steps backwards. That has been a difficult cycle to handle this year on top of my health spiraling and needing to prove myself at work. I’ve kept it to myself until now, but I’ve not liked feeling this way one bit.
Objectively, what played out is not poor at all and in this economy, really good, in fact, and I’m appreciative of the effort Boss must have gone to in order to make that happen. And I have my sights set on the next goal.
So that’s Year One down. Hello, Year Two.
October 6, 2010
I was reading an article that makes the point that your raises depend on making specific kinds of contributions to an organization.
Sara suggests that there are five categories of people who make themselves seem indispensable to a company, and therefore more valuable: The Learners, The Pushers, The Changers, The Builders, and The Teamers.
The Learners gather and store institutional knowledge; the Pushers are results-driven; the Changers are problem identifiers and troubleshooters, tinkerers; the Builders are visionaries who can do everything to launch a new project; and the Teamers are consensus builders.
Offhand, I can clearly identify at least one key management individual who happens to be highly capable in each of the above areas, except for Learning. I think that the value of institutional knowledge in some organizations will vary. For myself, I think I’m still naive, green or young enough to think that I can be strong in all those areas. It may just be phasic, though.
Several years ago, I was definitely a Learner. Now I’m cycling through the other four sorts of skills, nearly on a daily basis, depending on the project and I wonder if it wouldn’t be more valuable to focus on one or two skills. Is this similar to multi-tasking, am I just diluting my ability to be effective because the brain can really only manage one task at a time? Or is it a case where the more skills the better?
Do you see any of these traits in yourself? Do you think that growing any of these abilities or tendencies would benefit you in your current organization or your future plans?
September 11, 2010
Ok – though I’d promised Week of the Geek, I ran out of time because some candidate interviews crept up on me. My boss has been incredibly busy and so I was scrambling to rearrange the whole interviewing schedule on the fly while trying to hide the fact so the candidate didn’t think I and we were complete idiots. We’re not, we’re decent people, honest, but it’s been chaotic because 80% of the company is undergoing a systems change in a week. (*gulp*)
It turns out that it didn’t matter so very much. While I usually choose not to talk about my work here on the blog, I felt like so much of what I learned this week during the interview process was worth a mention.
Do you remember when “they”say: be nice to the secretary? That’s all very well and good, but I would like to extend that to a General Corollary: be polite to everyone. In my company, the semi-crazy looking dude in a weird t-shirt is the CEO. Some days. Other days, he’s pretty spiffy. But Upper Management does not feel compelled to wear their titles so no matter who you meet, no matter how dressed up or dressed down they are, if you don’t know their names and who they are, it’s not safe to assume they’re a nobody and treat them accordingly.
LISTEN. And Do Your Research.
Candidate No-Way never did either.
We’re a small enough company that my name is not repeated so a quick check of the company website would have given any candidate a good idea of who I was. CNW both ignored my self-introduction as a member of the interviewing panel and didn’t have any idea what I did in the company. Had CNW bothered to do any background research or listened to my explanation of the structure that she requested, CNW would have realized that her prospective position would be partially managed by … me.
Never mind that, though, I enjoy observing people’s behavior when they think I’m either monolingual, a teenage kid with no role, or an assistant. CNW was pushy, aggressive and ran right over me in conversation when given the opportunity.
I manage a large group that would be two tiers below this one, and there’s no way I’d recommend a candidate who’d treat me in that aggressive manner without knowing who I am during an interview; how do you suppose she’d treat my staff?
That was just my first impression.
My ruminations later covered our actual interview over lunch and her multiple gaffes there, again very much variations on the above themes:
A) Despite having interviewed with the hiring manager and her prospective boss, she couldn’t remember his name;
B) Despite having interviewed with my boss, and her boss’s boss, she couldn’t remember either of their names;
C) Despite having been told more than once who reported to whom, she asked me if the BiggestBoss reported to her prospective boss;
D) She mistook my boss for the office manager after spending an hour with him.
E) She took the lunch interview far too casually, acting like we were just friends on a lunch date
I have the feeling, after she dropped mentions of job offers in the East Bay and the considerations of San Diego that she didn’t actually want this job much anyway. After all, she couldn’t be bothered to do much preparation so I’m sure it won’t break her heart that we’re extending an offer to the other candidate instead.
But if you actually care about landing a decent job with a company you think “is incredibly cool with a great mission,” I cannot recommend any of the above techniques.
Hat-tip to Alison Green at Ask A Manager for articulating so much good hiring advice that CNW’s smooth attempts to hide her poor candidacy through constant, dominant conversation was obviously a snow job even to this less-experienced interviewer. She does boot camps!
June 11, 2010
When do you think about your shiny resume and sparkling accomplishments? About as often as you dust your high school or college diploma, right? Which is to say: never, unless you need it?
If you’re nodding right now, consider yourself my special guest audience: Your resume needs constant weeding and tending, watering and attention just like your savings.
The time to save, and the time to update your resume, is before you need it.
I’m three months into the new job and it’s been a blur of activity, new concepts, crazy challenges, and learning to speak a whole different set of jargon. It’s going to take another three months to start to feel settled in and leave behind the trauma, trials and travails. In that time, however, it’s entirely possible that I will have forgotten important details about my work life because they’ve become old hat or because my memory’s crap and painful memories are best forgotten. Six months after that, my accomplishments become even more hazy and so very “yeah .. I did … something.”
Of course I think that I won’t forget the really significant things but how long do you suppose your memory will hold out? Heck, I kick butt at my job but get so caught up that I forget what day it is all the time.
I’m no fool. I’m writing down my job summary on the resume now, and keeping a spreadsheet of accomplishment by the month to boot. Those will also serve as my talking points when I sit down for a six-month review and present my case for a raise. In twelve months, I’ll have the data ready to rinse and repeat.
In however many months after that, when I’m ready to move on, the routinely updated resume won’t be more than a few months behind my actual work and won’t reek of last job staleness. And if it comes to a downturn or a layoff or any other depressing means of termination? I won’t be writing my resume in the trough of depression – that never makes for a good sell.
Like an emergency fund, a stellar resume cannot be built overnight – you’ve got to put the time and effort in earning the nuggets of glory to populate your list of accomplishments and you’ve also got to record them. Neglect one or the other, and your final withdrawal will seem pretty paltry at the close of any job.
May 19, 2010
It’s amazing how much you can get done without a regular 9 to 5 taking up most of your day. Your day can start as, well-rested and refreshed, you have that leisurely cup of coffee or tea, basking in the morning sun with the paper. Work and errands are queued up, run on your schedule and so much more gets done.
Or does it?
Sometimes, after a round of several appointments and errands I’d feel terribly accomplished, but there was a sneaking suspicion that it simply wasn’t sustainable productivity. After all, it was rarely producing any income. On the flip side, getting up pre-dawn for work five days a week and squeezing in the personal stuff when and if you can feels so constrictive that the lure of the open schedule is a siren song. Of course, that alone is hardly good reason to stop working full time and I’d be unhappy if I weren’t being productive and earning money to hoard like a treasure-loving dragon.
There are days, though, that the idea of building an empire of something that is nearly self-sustaining, doesn’t require endless meetings to keep alive or keep moving, and doesn’t rely on the vagaries of a single entity for survival is awfully enticing. That and all the new Dr. Who and Caprica episodes that I know I’m missing are nibbling away at my patience. Ok, again, I know, not a valid reason. As a reforming workaholic, I claim right of not yet knowing how to balance work and play.
Have you considered the merits and drawbacks of being your own boss? If you could make an honest and respectable (however you define that number) wage, would you?
Mrs Micah recently asked Are You Ready to Become Your Own Boss?
I know that’s Nicole of RainyDaySaver‘s goal;
VH of Funny About Money is doing quite well sort of running her own show between the CopyEditor’s Desk and her community college classes;
Mrs. Money’s really liking the idea of ditching her full time position because she’s not happy with her job, thence to perhaps become a SAHM for at least a year;
On the other side of the fence, Paranoid Asteroid has no intentions of going freelance or entrepreneurial, and several people agree with her. Unfortunately I can’t find that post!
Which side of the fence do you prefer?
April 2, 2010
Whoo! Reacclimating to the early morning and long day thing has been … well, rough!
I’m very glad that I started late in the week because the amount of work, meetings, and gaping void of leadership that had to be addressed. My boss isn’t even here for part of this month so I’ve really been operating from a bit of a blind spot, but I’m proud to have smoothly handled three slightly sticky HR problems, taken the staff out for a lunch and rotated so that I had alone time with each of them, and pulled them into an impromptu Q&A session that seemed to release the tension I’d observed over the past two days.
Apparently, they hadn’t been explicitly informed that I was their new boss and supervisor.
Yeah.
That definitely was tension I was feeling in between my meetings.
The absence of the boss during this time will actually work for me as I clearly demonstrate my intention and ability to manage and support them within the organization so that they feel their contributions are not just expected, but their voices are heard and teach them how to speak up in a professional manner.
Meantime, I’m going to work on a weekly menu so that I bring my lunch everyday, and eat dinner in at least 5 times a week; eating out around the workplace seems to run between $10-15 which is way too much for a single daily meal. Simple and healthy recipes are always appreciated!
March 15, 2010
I got the job.
<-- Congratulatory cake and root beer.
I’m kind of sad that I didn’t make it out to the East Coast like I’d originally hoped to when starting this journey because I’ve got so many awesome friends and blogger friends out there (so many, can’t link to all!), I’d yearned to take on the East Coast, and I’m a little envious of the crowd that populates the DC Blogger Happy Hour. But those are maybe not the best criteria on which to be gauging a relocation for a job, especially considering the HCOL and lack of jobs that were as interested in me.
And that’s not in the least meant to be a slight against my West Coast blogger friends (again, too many to list) because they are darn awesome too! We’re just so much more spread out over here that Happy Hours don’t actually happen.
Oh, “what about the job” you ask? Right, the job. I’ve been hired to a full time position for a non-profit in the colder, more northerly half of California. It’s going to kick my butt while giving me a chance to really learn and show what I’ve learned in more adverse conditions. I’ll officially be in charge of people and telling them how to do their jobs better. [It’s in the job description. Really. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to be obnoxious about it.]
More importantly(?), years after I defiantly made up my mind to do so, I’m finally moving out.
In light of recent developments with the family, I can’t cut the money cord so this poses some new budgetary challenges. I’ll be salaried for the first time so that’s made budgeting easier but affording life harder.
I’ve powwowed with Excel and calculated to a fare-thee-well my family’s expenses, my projected expenses against my probable take-home pay. It’s not unemployment but it’s no great shakes after all’s said and done. My savings will be a long time regenerating, and I’m definitely living on a broke student budget for at least another year. At that point, if I’ve done my job, they’ll be throwing the money at me. 😉 Just kiddin’, there are no guarantees there. I’ll also need to spend some or the better part of my 3 weeks of vacation doing freelance work.
The interview was a heck of a thing but not nearly as bad as what I’d braced myself for, only 6.5 hours, not 8.5!) I did negotiate though I’m not surprised that I didn’t get everything I wanted. I did my research, took into consideration the market and the fact that I didn’t have competing offers versus continued unemployment, presented a case in a friendly but firm voice, and let the die fall where they might.
They fell on the patch of felt marked, “this is our best offer,” and I took it.
I’m pretty nervous excited terrified nervous. I have mood swings.
I have two weeks to put my life in boxes and ship it out, I have two weeks to fully automate my family’s financials, I have two weeks to see and hug everyone one last time before I fill out a change of address and walk out of the town I grew up in.
The logistics are frustrating but I’ll get a handle on them. (It only took a week to get any moving company to return my calls! Hello! Are we or are we not in a recession? Isn’t cash-money what you want?)
I’m still working on that other part where I’m really truly moving out, except not really telling my family it’s a real move because I can’t trust my brother to act right if he knows I’m absent. I’m all kinds of conflicted about that. I need to be able to come home to a non-wrecked home and a set of live (and as healthy as possible under the circumstances) parents. I don’t see that happening should the sibling realize that he essentially has no parole officer.
But I’ve got a job. I’ve got a job.
P.S. Days of the week, like Mondays, are going to have to mean something again!
