Double Journey

I’m about three months into my new job.  Like any job there are some good and there are some bad, but I will be honest and say I’ve been frustrated at my job much more than I should be considering I am in what should be the honeymoon phase.

I think my biggest problem is probably a mismatch in expectations.   This is something crucial to get right whenever you start a job and it is something that I unfortunately did not do well here.

This company has the exact opposite problem I had at Microsoft.  Microsoft moved too slow for me; this company moves to fast.  I was expected to come in and start making some pretty big decisions and contribute right from the start.  For someone in my position, who has to understand the product, technology, and process to do his job effectively, this put me in a very awkward position and quite frankly hurt my credibility.   I needed time to get my bearings and learn the ropes.  It would have been foolish of me to come in and start making changes left and right.  Even with what I know now and the problems that are evident, it is clear that some people aren’t open to changing things.

Managing expectations, it is something everyone has to do well in every job.  It is even truer the higher you go up the food chain where expectations become big and every missed expectation is magnified.

This is probably something you really need to nail down before accepting the job.  I’m usually pretty careful about this and I would argue I was even with this job.  There are some things you just can’t know before you really start a job, but you should still do your best to get a lay of the land.  I suggest you do the following (which I did)

1.  Ask what your success criteria will be in 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year
2. Who will be assigned to help you learn the nuances particular to any company
3. Do you have any immediate deliverables?
4. Who will help you with those deliverables if your ramp up time is longer than expected?

It is my strong suggestion that you limit your responsibility and deliverables immediately after starting a new job.  Biting off too much when you start can be frustrating for all involved.  I have to say this is one thing that Microsoft did well when I started.   I literally had no responsibility the first month I got there.   In about month and a half in, I was expected to deliver my first deliverable and even then it was small and manageable.  Only after I went through my first full cycle (about 6 months in) was I really expected to drive and deliver.

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I’m one of those people who in theory, don’t really believe in tipping yet I do it anyway, even when I get horrible service.   The side of me who doesn’t really believe in tipping believes so because I believe I pay for a service up front.  The price of the service is built in into my bill.  When I go to a restaurant, I pay a premium to eat there.  If they wish to charge me more to cover the salaries of their workers, so be it.  But I do not feel obligated to do the job of the owner of the restaurant, which is to pay his workers.  While some may argue that the wait staff is paid less  because tips are factored into their pay, I simply respond that again, I’m not responsible for other people, however callous that may sound.  Pay is between an employer and an employee, and if the employee is not being paid enough, it should be brought up with the employer, not the customer.

With all that being said, I always tip, even when I’m generally unhappy with the service.  Not sure why I do it, but something just compels me.   Perhaps it is a sense of guilt, although I like to think I live my life pretty guilt free.  For whatever the reason, I almost always tip and it is almost always quite generous.  However, I had cause tonight to not tip.

My movers came to deliver my stuff to my new apartment.  I tipped the crew at the origin and planned to tip the crew (who was different) at my destination.  However, the guy who showed up was clearly unorganized, and wasn’t sure what was my stuff and what was another persons.  He also shows up woefully understaffed, he brought only one other guy with him.   Since he showed up at 7:00 p.m., I decided to help lest he be here till Midnight.  What upset me even more was that it was very clear that many of my belongings were mishandled and not treated with care.  There were boxes with water damage (most of the contents were safe however), there were boxes labeled “This End Up” that were upside down, they dropped the bed (that was thankfully covered in plastic) onto the wet grass.  The list goes on and on.  So I decided to not tip them.  I felt bad for about 30 seconds, and then I got over it quickly.  I’m up typing this at 1:30 a.m. because they left at around 10:30.

So what do you think.  Do you always tip?  Are there times you don’t?  Why  not?
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I was having lunch with a former colleague from Microsoft. She was telling me how she was reading the book Rich Man Poor Dad and thought of me as she read it. In that book, Richard Kiyosaki describes how each job he took he took more for the experiences he would have and the lessons he could learn rather than the money he could earn from the job.

It is true. Each job I have taken I have taken with purpose. I have done this because I know that life is much more a marathon than a sprint. It is like my lesson on compound interest. Small sacrifices now can have a big impact down the road.

Now, that being said, I’ve been pretty lucky.  It’s not like any job I took forced me to live in a box and survive on Top Ramen.  But as I was considering whether or not to take a certain job, I definitely focused much more on the characteristics of the company and the job than on what my paycheck would look like.  This continues to pay off with each subsequent job I take as I’m very easily able to articulate why I took the job and what I gained from it.  This actually means I can generally get a job that paid me significantly more than what I made previously because I have had great experience and have a career with purpose.

So I am not advocating ever taking a significant pay cut just to get a job that gives you slightly better experience and learning opportunities.  Doing so has other bad side effects later on down the road.  But never ever make salary your primary concern.  Working to learn not earn will keep your career trajectory aimed very high.
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Today, I found out that one of my coworkers is doing what I did, quitting without another job lined up. He is about my age, maybe a little bit younger, but he just didn’t feel that the opportunity was right at our company and has decided to go and try it on his own. He doesn’t have a real plan but knew that he had to move on. I know a few more people who have done this or are planning to do it. Most of them are younger without a lot of obligations. Most of them however have really good paying jobs. Free Money Finance just recently had a post on whether or not you should quit your job without another one lined up. He came down on the side of you should definitely not.

I however, having done it, really do see both sides of this argument. It really just depends. Most people are probably unhappy with their job in one form or another, especially younger people. I think my generation more so than any other before take job satisfaction to be very important. Our parents understood that a job was just that, a job. You didn’t like your job, you did it to put food on the table. But somewhere along the way that changed. A job became who you were, it defined you. We constantly heard our parents tell us, “Do what you love” and we took it to heart. That has caused my generation to job hop until we find something that really makes us happy. The problem is that it is always still a job, and many people don’t ever come to realize that. They jump from job to job always hoping to find something better. I know very few people my age that haven’t had at least two different jobs. I myself am on my fourth while only being out of college for a little under eight years.

I disagree with the conventional wisdom for a few reasons.

1. You can be doing a lot of other things besides a 9-5 job to earn money - This didn’t use to be the case, but you can spend your time coming up with alternative ways to earn income. In the end, this might actually be smarter if you can make it passive, and then return to the work force. You will have double income!
2. It really depends on your financial situation - If you are like me with no obligations or debt, and could survive years unemployed, than you have little to worry about. Believe me, the fear is bigger than the reality most of the time. This is where living frugally really pays off.
3. Depends how much you make and how in demand your skills are - I make a lot of money. There aren’t a lot of jobs that pay what I make now. It isn’t easy for me to just find a job that will pay me what I want to make. However, I have the advantage of having skills highly in demand, so most of the time I have very little trouble finding a new job when I really want one.
4. Money isn’t everything - Coming from a guy who highly values money, this may be shocking, but it’s true. I would rather have a job I liked and get paid less for it than a job I hated and got paid more for. So I would be willing to take a job that paid me less if I ever got so desperate. That being said, a lot of people are miserable no matter how much they get paid, so this makes the argument that perhaps you should just stick it out. Might as well get more money than less money for the same level of misery!

So what do you think? How bad of an idea is it to quit a job without another one? Do you think it really is an epidemic among the younger generation?
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Despite the fact that most humans have unlimited wants, most people can’t articulate exactly what it is they want. I’ve been searching for an apartment the last few weeks. I’ve looked at a lot of apartments to try and figure out exactly what I want. Just the other day I thought I finally found a place that was good enough that I wanted to submit an application. I wasn’t sure though, so I wanted to think about it and discuss it with my girlfriend.

Well right before I could submit an application, someone else did and got the apartment before me. It got me thinking about how I should have just made a decision about the apartment when I saw it. Before I spent all the time looking around, I should have really narrowed down what I would and would not accept. It’s so often happens with people. People just don’t know exactly what they want, and when faced with making a decision, they have decision paralysis. You would think that given my job as a decision maker, I wouldn’t have a problem making decisions, but I guess I’m only human.

I think this plays out in so many ways that are even more important than finding an apartment. People have this problem when deciding what they want to do with their career. I’ve talked to so many people who know they don’t want to be doing what they are doing now but can’t tell me what they really want to do. Worse, I’ve seen people switch to a job just to leave their current job, without really considering what was wrong with their current job and if it would exist at their new job.

Do you ever face decision paralysis because you don’t know what you want? If so in what situation?
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Do you know a guy at work who seems to always have a lot of work, but in reality you know he doesn’t?  They appear in most companies.  There the guy running around all the time complaining about how much work they have and how they can’t get any of it done.

I’m not saying that everyone who does this doesn’t actually have a lot of work.  Many people are genuinely overworked.  However, I’ve come to the conclusion that most people do this to themselves.  I will admit, that sometimes I probably made it seem like I had more than I had simply so it would look like I was working hard.

But I’ve decided to go the other way on this one.  I want it to appear that I’m always in control.  Think about this carefully.  I’m at a point in my career where I want to make the move from middle management to upper management.  This is a big jump, and the rules at the top aren’t the same at the bottom.  While working your ass off is what it takes to get where I am, I don’t think it will get me much further.

Executives need to always be in control of the situation.  Things can not be hectic around an executive.  Having “too much work” is a sure way to cause chaos.  Things get missed when you are overworked, and when things get missed at the top, they have a BIG impact on everyone else.  Further, it is crucial that management always be able to do more with less.  If you can’t manage your own workload, how are you going to be able to manage the workload of others.  How are you going to manage it when you inevitably have to cut staff and produce even more?

This isn’t to say I’m not going to work hard.  Of course I am, it’s just who I am.  But I’m going to be sure not to make it seem like I have “too much work”.  What are your thoughts?  Is it more important to look busy or look like you can manage your time effectively?
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So yesterday was my first day on the job.  It was a long day.  I got up 2 hours before I started because my commute was 1.5 hours.  Got to love L.A.    Despite the fact I can live rent free with my Mom for the time being, I think it will be worth it to just go find a place.  Will probably go look this weekend since next weekend I’m back to Seattle to go finish my move.

Not a lot out of the ordinary for the first day of work.  Just your usual orientation stuff and introductions.  Went to lots of meetings where I didn’t know what anyone was talking about.  Some people feel very uncomfortable in these types of situations.  I don’t.  I find you can learn much faster if you just get in the middle of it and figure out how the team operates.  I have been told I actually have to make some key decisions this week.  It’s a little early even for someone who can learn quickly like me, but hey, I’m up to the challenge.

Sorry this is not more of a substantive blog post.  It’s going to be a little light this week as I get my feet wet.  I will still have a blog post every day and actually have some pretty good stuff planned going forward.  I’m working some long hours this week, which goes against some of the things I believe in when it comes to work.  More on that later.
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So now you have that great Ivy League Degree, now what? How do you go about finding a job? Well, it isn’t always as easy as it sounds, even for those with great credentials. Here is my advice. Diversify. No, I’m not talking about your portfolio. I’m saying that there is no one single way you should go about looking for a job. You need to look under every rock you can and try multiple methods to try and find that perfect dream job. (I think the same thing applies to finding the right woman, but that’s another story)

I’ve had four different jobs in my life. I found each job differently. Here is how I did it, and what I would recommend.

College recruitment - If you are still in college, this is the way to go. Many larger companies will come to the university and recruit right on campus. This tends to be great for new college grads because you know that they are looking for good entry-level positions. This is especially helpful, because a lot of time, these are treated as informational. If you are like me, you might not know what you even want to do out of college and this can be the way to go.  Word of advice though, just because you don’t know what you want to do, don’t let on to the recruiters that you don’t know what you want to do.  Employers want to know that you will have a passion to do whatever it is they do.  If you go for a banking interview, you must show you love to bank.  If it’s a tech job, computers need to be your life.  It’s fine to go on lots of different types of interviews, just don’t let it on that you aren’t sure where you will go.

Post your resume online - Probably the least effective way to go about getting a job, but I’m living proof it works. I posted my resume on one of the job boards, either Dice or Monster, and I was contacted by a person in a company looking to fill a position. Most of the time, this method will get you lots of calls from recruiters looking to present you to a company. I have had very little luck with these types of placements but some luck with companies directly. The big advantage here is that if they contact you, they already like your resume, so chances for success here are very good. However, this has the strong disadvantage that you have little or no control over who is looking at your resume or when they might contact you.  Make sure you resume has lots of keywords in it, but still presents well.  You will be found by people searching for keywords, but you will be called because your resume looks great.

Networking - Everyone says this is the best way to find a job. Ask your friends and see if they know of anyone who is hiring. I found my last job this way, and I will agree it is the easiest way to find a job for most people. Getting through the many layers of HR and decision makers can be very hard. Having a friend on the inside can only help you. My advice to all people is this, be friendly at work. You never know who can help you land the next job. Further, be friendly with the right people. While it may sound underhanded, attach yourself to smart people who are going places. Chances are, they may take you with them if you are ever looking for a change of scenery. Not only will these people always have a good job at a good company, but their recommendation tends to carry a lot of weight wherever they go.

Apply directly to jobs you find either on a company’s website or one from a job board - This is how I found my next job but it can be very difficult. Most people will not be able to duplicate my 40% success rate at getting replies back from hiring companies. You would probably be doing well if it was closer to 10% or even 5%. You have to understand, these companies may look at hundreds of resumes. I’ve been a hiring manager. Believe me, I may look through fifty resumes before I find one I like. You have to be able to stand out from the crowd. That’s where a great corporate pedigree comes into play. It can make you stand out. If you don’t have it, you need to be sure that you stand out in some other way. I’ll get to that later when I talk about resumes.  The one very strong bit of advice I can give here is to put some work into each resume you said.  Read the job description, make sure you are a good fit, and then customize your resume to fit the job description.  You don’t have to rewrite the whole thing, just make sure that within 3o seconds, the employer knows you can do the job.

There are still some other ways, but I haven’t found too much success in them. How about you? What ways have you looked for jobs and how successful were they?
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My girlfriend was reading a book called The World’s Greatest Resumes by Robert WM. Meier. In it he talks a lot about having the perfect corporate pedigree and how his book can help those that don’t have a perfect corporate pedigree. It tells you how to emphasize certain aspects of your resume, and how to work your way around some of your weaknesses. Overall, I think she would recommend the book, as her resume looks pretty good now.

I write about this because when I asked about the book, she told me I didn’t need it, because I have the perfect corporate pedigree. I laughed when she said this, except she was serious. I’ve never really thought of myself this way despite the fact that I’ve always seem to be able to find a job, and a good job, when I want one. So just what does make a perfect corporate pedigree? While not coming out and explicitly saying it, Meier seems to suggest that a great pedigree involves

• Having an Ivy League Degree
• Working for a big Fortune 500 Company
• Having a continuous work history that shows good career progression

I fit the bill because I graduated from Princeton University, I have worked for two Fortune 500 Companies, Accenture and Microsoft, and I have no large gaps in my resume. I believe I took a small step backwards with my move to Microsoft, but I can easily explain the move and to outsiders it looks like a smart career move. So having these “qualifications” supposedly makes me more desirable to potential employers. Is it true?

Hard to say. I would say there is no doubt that many doors have been opened to me because the Princeton and Microsoft name carry some clout. I have a pretty high success rate of responses to people who I sent my resume to. I would say that of all the resumes I sent out in my latest job search, I had about a 40% response rate. This is a phenomenal number. But I want to stress this. I think this allowed me to get a call back, I don’t think it helped me all that much to actually get the job. But considering the fact that getting the call back might be the hardest part, then this may indeed be a key success factor.

HR and hiring managers might look through hundreds of resumes to fill an important position. Lots of times, they will only scan your resume and look at your eduction, job history, and previous titles. It is important to have something on your resume that will let you stand out from the crowd in this case, and having the above criteria certainly won’t hurt you.

The point of me writing this post is that you need to understand what many employers are looking for in order to prepare for it accordingly. If you have the above pedigree, great, you are set. Just make sure your resume looks decent and that you use the advantage that you have wisely. If you don’t, you need to be sure that you are showing off your qualifications in some other way to stand out. Further, if you have the opportunity to enhance your resume in some way, like going to get your MBA at a top-tier school, or to go work for a Fortune 500 company, you need to seriously consider it.

That’s my admittedly bias perspective. What do you think? How important is having a good “corporate pedigree”?
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Free Money Finance wrote a post the other day about when to not take a job offer. I actually think it is a pretty interesting topic. I’m touching on it a little bit earlier than I want but when I take into account that I just accepted a job offer, it makes sense to talk about why I took this one as opposed to other job offers.

As I started writing this post, I realized it really depends on the particular situation. Therefore, I’m going to write this post in a few different parts to address each situation. The situation I think most people will find themselves in is that they still are at their current job (company A) and they are looking for a change in scenery. For this exercise, I’m going to assume you are trying get as high on the corporate ladder as you can in the shortest amount of time. So given this situation, imagine you receive a job offer from Company B, should you take it? Here are situations I would not take a job offer.

You are not 100% sure that whatever is bothering you about your current job is not going to happen at the new job - Most people fail to realize that a lot of problems they have with their job is not specific to their team, company, etc. They fail to realize that whatever they hate about their current job is going to exist at their next job and so get stuck in a vicious cycle.

You are going to take significantly less money for the same role - This is actually an extension of above. If you are going to switch companies to do the same work, why would you take a pay cut? Pay is important. It isn’t strictly about what it will buy you. It’s the fact that it is a signal to you how important the job is to the company. If one company is going to pay you less, you have to wonder if it really is the same job.

You are going to take a lesser role - I have actually fallen trap to this. I was eager to leave Company A and took a position where my role would be less than what it was at the time (the money was about the same). While it worked out for me, this is generally not a good idea. If you want to reach the top of the corporate ladder, it is critically important that you have steady progression upwards. If you take a lesser role, and it doesn’t work out, this will impact you as you look for a new job at Company C. Here is a little secret. Changing jobs is often the BEST time to go for a promotion. That’s right. Often, it is easier to get a BETTER role going to a new company than it is at your own, so you should almost never take a lesser role. Keep looking if this is the case.

You haven’t mapped out what you want in your career - If you don’t know what you want, hoping to find it at your next job is the wrong way to find it. Changing jobs should be a very thoughtful exercise, you need to do it for the right reason. You should not jump from job to job hoping that someone will tell you what you should be doing. Nobody cares about your career more than you do. If you think you are going to find a manager who is suddenly going to tell you what you should be doing and how you will get there, you will be looking for a long time.

You haven’t really tried to make it work at your current job - The grass isn’t always greener. A lot of people just move from job to job hoping to find that “perfect” job. They don’t actually realize that their current situation isn’t all that bad, and haven’t tried to work out the issues they have. Most companies and managers want to retain good people and don’t want to see you leave. If it can be worked out, you should at least explore if staying is a legitimate option.

Despite all these reasons not to take a job offer, let me give you something to think about that was said by a friend of mine just last night. If the only reason you are at your current job is inertia, you need to get out. I can’t tell you the number of people I have talked to who have told me that they are “comfortable” at their current job so they don’t want to look for another. They only reason they are where they are, is that it is “too hard” to find another job or they are too lazy. That is the absolute worse reason to be at a job, and a sure sign you need to be looking hard to go somewhere else.

Those are my reasons not to take a job offer if you are deciding between your current job and a new one, can you think of any more?
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