Career Strategies: 

Professional Growth vs. Compensation Maximization

In today's economic and job climate, it's important to focus on the task at hand -- but you never want to lose sight of the bigger picture.   Moving forward in a career is having success personally, financially and being recognized by your peers.   The big question is: what is the best way to approach your career development strategy?  As recruiters/search consultants/career advisors, we are constantly presenting opportunities to our candidates and fielding important questions pertaining to these roles.   More and more often we are hit with the "what is the target salary?" question very early on in the process; sometimes even before "what are the scope of responsibilities?" question.     Obviously, we understand that having a competitive financial package is extremely important but is it as important as the nature of the position itself?   Determining which strategy to use is critical when assessing your current position against an new opportunity or opportunities outside of your employer.

Compensation maximization is fairly self explanatory.   It's all based on the premise that each move results in a significant uptick in pay.  For folks that do it serially, it's called  'job hopping'.  However, making  this the focus is essentially short-term thinking for long term career decisions, or, a tactical way of seeing near-term pay increases as opposed to strategic, gradual compensation growth with concurrent increases in responsibility.  One of the major flaws with this approach is that  it typically puts the new hire in the upper levels of a salary range too quickly --  which makes it harder to achieve competitive increases.   It also puts pressure on the new employee to reach higher expectations of performance and if not reached, then it more than likely that the individual will be considered as "underperforming". 

A professional growth maximization strategy is focused more on the concept that learning and taking on challenging assignments leads to more recognition which will lead to increases in compensation.     The more knowledge and experience gained becomes the driving factor in career advancement.  If you are brought on in the middle or lower end of a salary range, it gives you more wiggle room to "outperform" the expectations which in turn can lead to bigger pay increases and potentially being assigned more important projects. Successful performance leads to promotions which leads to higher pay.  Managers also have a tendency to be more receptive with employees that are willing to prove their worth rather than being paid in advance for it.  Over the long term, significant pay increases follows growth, it very rarely leads it.   

For each career move and when employing the professional growth strategy (which we recommend), especially when comparing opportunities which also includes the potential advancement of your current role, determine whether or not  the opportunity(s) represents a positive step by factoring in such things as technology challenges, scope of the projects, learning opportunities, quality of the team and hiring manager, and direction/growth of the company, this all in addition to the potential increase in compensation. 

Email Communication During the Hiring Process

'I'd rather saying nothing and be thought a fool than to open my mouth and remove all doubt'

--Mark Twain

In several interactions with candidates over the last few months, and some examples specifically in the last stages of the hiring process or even nearing an offer, we have experienced some examples of how to, and more importantly, how not to communicate with hiring managers and HR professionals as a potential employee for that company.  We are a recruiting firm - and sometimes, though it may seem trite or redundant, we need to re-explain our goal:  To make sure our client companies identify and obtain the best talent on the market for their open positions.  Our interests for our candidates are similarly aligned:  We are rewarded by placing our candidates, some actively looking for jobs, some passively at these companies. What can be frustrating, however, is when a poorly written or ill-timed email or text communication derails what could be a great match between the two.  No one is happy when this happens.  It is important to trust your recruiter to represent you so that you look your absolute best during the entire process and as a buffer of communication between the company and you.

There are specific times that we do recommend, in fact, stress that email communication is courteous and important.  Generally, this is after the first face-to-face interview. This email should be to the hiring manager and any other members of the decision team (HR included)with which you've met (separate emails for each person) and this should be a succinct conveyance of appreciation for their time and their consideration of you as a candidate for the position, and to reiterate (if this is still the case, assuming it is of course) your continued interest in the position and the company, and looking forward to the next steps should you still be a candidate for the role.  Done.  What we've seen recently are instances where this simple and quite traditional 'Thank You ' note can go terribly wrong.

For these 'Thank You' emails, common mistakes include: sending off an email that has not been spell-checked or is written in a incomprehensible way; not putting enough thought into the message and sending a rambling, confusing blurb;  bragging about accomplishments or too strongly over-hyping your credentials for the position as to appear arrogant; or making the assumptive, incorrect conclusion that the job is yours.  We have seen all of these and, sadly, they can be absolute deal-breakers.  What is important in these emails is that not only are they an obligatory show of gratitude for people's valuable time and a way of showing continued interest in the process, but more critical still that they are a glimpse into another way you organize and present your thoughts --a direct reflection of your business acumen.   So again, this should be a clearly designed, short but smart thank you, with the added message that you are still very interested in the next step.  We are more than happy to screen these emails before you send them off or to provide you with templates that have worked well for us. 

Unfortunately, these blunders can be tame in comparison to strategic mistakes in communication that can derail job offers in the later stages.  These are the hardest to accept, in that they are very easy to avoid.   Again, you must trust in your recruiter and that they are representing you with the very best intentions in mind.  Recently in some instances, we have seen candidates that 'go over the head' of the recruiter, contact the hiring manager or HR directly during the offer negotiating process, and as a result have things go horribly wrong. 

First off, it comes off invariably as pushy.  But it shows a fundamental distrust, not only obviously in the recruiter but in any and all employers; it can be interpreted in a way that can and most usually does, backfire or totally destroy a promising offer.   In our experience, in the times that our candidates have engaged in this type of behavior, it ends badly 99.9% of the time.  Use your recruiter as a conduit, through which you extract the best offer possible, but believe that they are working in your best interest and that by cutting them out of the process you take several chances, none of them good.