Actions & Ideas
- Create a mental and written picture of the perfect job. This includes pay, working environment, insurance, training, peers, and so on. This is not to dissuade you to turn down a job that does not meet your ideal. Instead, use it as a way to gauge those opportunities you come across. You might find that you sacrifice one aspect for particular strengths in another. The picture you create is simply a guideline for assessing opportunities.
- At your next interview, begin the negotiation process early by letting the company know factors that are important to you. Don't do this in a pushy, I-need-this-or-else type of way. Instead, your goal is to let the employer know your future negotiation points.
- Keep in mind that negotiations never fail. In fact, you are better off knowing a company will not meet your requirements on some critical point early. Doing so frees you to move on to the next opportunity. For this reason, create a baseline of requirements that you can use to gauge every opportunity. If, for instance, you cannot or will not travel more than two days per month for your job, and the requirements for a position involve two weeks of travel per month, your decision becomes much simpler. Almost all other factors become moot.