Ask Liz: Who Pays for Interview Travel?

Dear Liz,

I have two interviews coming up, one 65 miles from my home and the
other one 150 miles away. The employers know where I live because my
home address is on my resume. Who pays for my travel expenses (gas and
tolls, and possibly parking)? They invited me for the two interviews
via email and I confirmed via email so I haven't talked to anyone live.

Thanks,

Fedor

------------- REPLY FROM LIZ:---------------------

Dear Fedor,

Every company has its own reimbursement practices, but in general, if
the job is within a reasonable everyday commuting distance you're on
your own for the interview-travel bill, as you would be for the daily
commuting expenses. That definitely covers the job opportunity 65
miles away from your home.

The folks who have the job opening 150 miles away may assume that
you're planning on moving closer to the job if you get it, or that
three-hour commutes don't bother you, or perhaps that you have friends
or family you'd stay with in town if you got the offer. Either way, if
they didn't offer to pay travel expenses and you didn't bring it up
when you RSVP'd, you have for all intents and purposes passed the
point where you could have broached the subject.

Going forward, if you get invited to come to an interview with a
company more than 100 miles away from you, you could bring up the
subject of interview-travel reimbursement when you're invited to come
see them. However, be ready to have your request turned down. Many
employers will take the view "Hey, you came to us - we didn't post the
job in your city" and will consider the interview trip part of your
investment in exploring the opportunity.

As a corporate HR person I would fly candidates in for interviews if
their resumes suggested that they were as strong as or stronger than
the local folks we were considering. For a long drive - three or four
hours - we'd reimburse gas and tolls. For an even longer drive, five
or six hours, we'd put the candidate up at a local hotel for one
night. Keep in mind that the interview-travel conversation is
completely different from and not necessarily correlated with a
conversation about relocation expense.

Best,

Liz

The Underemployment Trap

Dear Liz,

I lost my job as the VP of Communications at a software company, back
in August. I applied for a bunch of things but the competition is
fierce. Last week, I accepted a job as the Director of Communications
for a not-for-profit. Punchline: the salary is 40% of what I was
earning before. I am not sure how to proceed. Of course I'm doing my
job, and my not-for-profit employer is getting a heck of a bang for
its buck. I don't know whether to park here to sit out the recession
or keep looking for something more in line with my background and
comp level. Thoughts?

Thanks,

Maricel

---------- LIZ REPLIES:-------------------------------

Dear Maricel,

So sorry about the layoff, and hats off to you for rebounding
quickly. Paying the bills is central to every single one of our
personal Maslow's hierarchies. I don't blame you a bit for taking
that job. However, let's look at what comes next. You are
underemployed, and you don't want to stay that way.

If you do, you say to the world (via your resume) "I thought I was
worth $X and so did my employer, but now I find that I am worth
$.4X." You can stick around and help these guys for a short time and
keep your antennae up. Beyond some point -- a year to 18 months,
let's say -- you can't stay in a job like that without massively
devaluing your resume. If it's more than a job, if it's a calling for
you, that's one thing. You can adjust your lifestyle and do this work
until you retire. If it's a less-than-optimal job that you took
because optimal jobs weren't available, you can't afford to get stuck
in the underemployment trap.

The reason underemployment is a trap is that it has its advantages.
Sometimes, the hours are nice. The people are nice. The pace can be
refreshingly slow after a corporate job. Again, if all that really
suits you and you're willing to give up the pay trajectory you once
knew, fantastic. If not, you don't have an infinitely long time to
hide out in your port-in-a-storm situation while the rest of the
talent pool accumulates resume fodder and salary growth.

If you approach the nfp situation as a consulting gig and essentially
donate several hundred thousand dollars worth of communications
consulting to them for several months or a year, beautiful. You'll
describe your time there in the same consulting-assignment terms on
your resume. It would be great if you had time and energy to keep a
hand in the for-profit world throughout, perhaps by doing some
consulting alongside your full-time job. I want to caution you in the
strongest possible terms about getting stuck in an underemployment
rut; I hear from at least five or six people a week, across the U.S.,
who regret taking an underemployment assignment and gradually getting
caught there like a sabre-tooth tiger in a prehistoric tar pit.

I'm not talking strictly about not-for-profits, of course; you can
fall into the underemployment trap believing that managing a local
branch of a massive retailer for a year will get you promoted to a
lucrative Regional Manager position. You can get stuck underemployed
in a healthcare organization where you're told on a regular basis
that more senior roles open up all the time (yet, strangely, it's
always external candidates who get hired for those jobs). Once you
set the level of your value, expect it to stay fixed throughout your
tenure.

Many of us will find ourselves underemployed at some point - or more
than one point - during a career. The trick is to see underemployment
for what it is, and not to stay in that zone a minute longer than
necessary.

Cheers,

Liz

Ten Ways to Ruin a Job Interview

Dear friends, here's a new story on Yahoo!:

TEN WAYS TO RUIN A JOB INTERVIEW

The great thing about a job interview is the way that it narrows the
field. If you can get in front of the people making a hiring
decision, that means that you've already moved from a group of
perhaps 100 resumes to a field of just a few serious contenders. At
that point, your chance of getting a job offer improves dramatically.

Of course, having surmounted that huge hurdle, the last thing you
want to do is blow it. To that end, here are 10 job-interview gaffes
to avoid.

1. Complaining about the parking or directions.
Don't think it doesn't happen! As cordial and happy-go-lucky as your
interviewers may seem, they don't want to hear a job-seeker complain
that the place was hard to find or that the parking is inconvenient.
The best (that is, the worst) example of this I ever experienced as
an HR person came from the candidate who said, "Seven handicapped
parking spaces next to the front door? What, are you having a
wheelchair convention or something?" That was a short interview.

2. Bad-mouthing your previous job, manager, or company.
If you've been laid off or suffered some other unpleasant experience
at your last job, it's easy to launch into a litany of everything the
old employer did wrong. Don't do it! The interviewer is bound to
wonder "Will this person be bashing me behind my back on some future
interview, too?" Zip it.

3. Digging into details off the bat.
The typical selection process allows plenty of time for you to learn
everything you need to know about the company's dental plan, its
tuition-reimbursement policy, and the size of your cubicle. Don't ask
about any of these items on a first interview, when you should be
focusing the conversation on the role and the organization.

4. Groveling.
Employers want to hire people who can do the jobs and who are
enthusiastic about the work. What's not so appealing is the candidate
whose every word and gesture conveys the message, "Hire me, I beg
you!" Joblessness is no fun, but you don't help your chances of
getting the nod by presenting yourself as a candidate whose most
notable attribute is desperation.

5. Answering a question before you understand it.
The absolute worst answer to any interview question is the response
that shows you weren't really listening. When an interviewer asks a
question that requires thought, like, "Tell me about a time when you
had to convince a team of people to change gears," you don't want to
blurt out, "Oh, I've done that a million times!" Any "tell me about a
time when" question is a question that the interviewer has chosen to
elicit a specific problem/solution story from you. Take the time to
think through the question and compose a thoughtful answer. A few
minutes of silence in the room won't kill anybody.

6. Spacing out.
Any interviewer worth her salt will be able tell when you've zoned
out. If you're wondering whether the 5:40 train will get you home in
time to watch the playoff game, the interviewer will spot it in your
eyes. If you're really out of it, he may throw you a curve ball
like, "So, who would you say was the most effective member of Teddy
Roosevelt's cabinet, and why?" Stay in the room, with your eyes
either meeting the interviewer's or looking thoughtfully at the
ceiling. Or your shoes.

To read the full story, please jump here

25 Hours Per Week Job-Search Schedule

Dear Liz,

I graduated from college five years and have been lucky not to have
job-hunted since then. I am job-searching now and struggling with the
question of how to spend my time. Do you have a simple schedule to
share with me?

Thanks,

Deniece

______ LIZ REPLIES:_______________

Dear Deniece,

This is a big hurdle for newly unemployed job-seekers: how do I spend
my day? Here's a roadmap to get your job search and your new (just-
for-the-duration) schedule going:

1) Make a plan.
You can't apply for everything. You'll want to zero in on a certain
job-search geography, the types of companies you'll be targeting, and
of course the job titles/families that are closest to your experience
and interests. You'll need the plan first so that your resume,
LinkedIn profile and job-search business card (those are in Step Two,
below) can 'point' in the direction you've identified.

2) Get your materials together.
Your sharp, human-voiced resume is the very first priority where your
job-search toolkit is concerned. Your LinkedIn profile is next.
Third, you'll want a set of dedicated job-search business cards. A
grownup email address (not luvcats@gmail.com) and outgoing voicemail
message round out the list.

3) How much time have you got?
You'll need to know how much time you're willing to spend on your job-
search every day (M-F) in order to create a schedule. Let's say five
hours per day is your target. (I like it!). That means you've got 25
hours/week available for job-searching; that's equivalent to a full-
time job search, because job-hunt work is Very Taxing.

4) Build your schedule.
Here's my recommended daily breakdown:

One hour/day of jobs-site research. Target: Apply for five new jobs
every day M-F. Once you find a few jobs sites that seem to turn up
the best opportunities (I like Indeed.com, SimplyHired.com, and
CareerBuilder.com, but if you tell us your area of specialty we can
recommend others) set up email alerts to send new job opps to your
inbox.

One hour/day of company research. You don't want to apply for those
five jobs until you've researched the companies that are advertising
them. One hour/day gives you twelve minutes on each employer's
website and on LinkedIn to gather fodder for your pithy, customized
cover letter. You're looking for a specific person to write to, and a
topical 'hook' for the first paragraph of your cover letter.

One hour/day writing cover letters: You'll use the previous hour's
research to construct a customized cover letter for each opportunity.
Read more about customized cover letters at
www.practicaljobsearchadvice.blogspot.com.

One hour/day assembling and sending out your five packets via snail
mail. You can also use some of this time to write a second great
cover letter per opportunity, in case you decide to double up your
direct-outreach efforts by sending a resume and cover letter into the
Black Hole (the employer's website or its ad on Monster,
CareerBuilder, et al). (It can't hurt.)

One hour/day networking - that's lunch, coffee, a walk around the
block or some other face-to-face contact with a human being who can
give you leads, ideas, and/or moral support for your job search. If
you have a friend who's game for a weekly get-together, sign up, even
if s/he has no ideas and no leads - the moral support is the most
important element! Job-searching is hard, solitary, often
discouraging work.

There's your schedule. If you get a burst of energy in the evening
there's "pure" employer research -- that is, writing to companies who
haven't posted jobs -- and there's online networking, which isn't
included in your daytime schedule, above. No space left in this
message to write about those two job-search prongs, but we'll get to
it down the road....cheers, Liz

www.asklizryan.com/details
liz@asklizryan.com

Ask Liz: What's an "S" Got to Crow About?

Dear Liz,

I love your idea of "I Left a Wake" statements in your resume, but I know my resume is pure "I Showed Up" drivel. The thing is that I'm not a leader type. I took the DiSC profile and I'm almost all "S." I like to keep the home fires burning. I like to keep things organized, rather than to start things. What can I say on my resume that will make me appealing to employers?

Thanks,

Marie-Anne


Dear Marie Anne,

The great thing about "S" types (steadfast, stable, solid) is that these are employers' favorite folks. As you say, they keep the engines turning! You can crow about your "S" characteristics in your Summary, your cover letters and even the sections of your resume that describe each job. Here's a bit of "S"-crowing to get you started:

"At Sympatico Systems, I ran the publications schedule and coordinated ads with our tech folks, sales reps and clients. My forte is taking projects that have become unfocused with parts strewn about, and getting them back on track. I'm a bit fanatical about weekly reports arriving on time, keeping processes current and functioning, and knowing that my colleagues are well-informed. I thrive in a job where the pressure's on to keep scores of large and small items from falling through the cracks."

This is pure "S" lingo. You don't have to single-handedly get a new product to market or steal the competitor's biggest customer, to be a star. As you know Marie-Anne, there's more than one way to be a leader. :-)

Cheers -- Liz

How To Account for Years of Experience in Each Skill Area?

Hi Liz,

I have held several jobs where I have performed all tasks in the software life
cycle.

To keep it simple, let's say I have had a job for five years that involved
analyzing requirements, designing a system or a bug fix (sometimes formally
but often informally), coding the programs (often using multiple languages
and tools), testing and further tweaking the product, implementing the
solution in the production system, and documenting the changes.

Can I say I have five years worth of experience in each of these tasks/tools
used, or do I need to think "well I spent maybe three months analyzing, two
and a half years coding, a year and a half coding and testing and integrating
changes, but already considered the coding part earlier, a month plus a few
days here and there implementing the changes ..." ... and you get the
picture. I could break down my experience in the tool sets (Oracle,
programming and scripting languages, HTML vs. XHTML vs. CSS vs. XML, etc.) in
a similar fashion.

Is five years of coding languages A, B, and C 60% of the time worth five years
or three - and presumably one year each language?

Is five years of analyzing requirements 20% of the time worth five years or
just one?

Yikes! As you can see this really gets complicated when one has worked with
multiple tool sets on multiple jobs!

Is there some way I can keep it simple yet honest about how many years and
months I have spent doing these tasks and using the tools involved?

Thanks in advance, Liz, I greatly enjoy reading your advice to members of this
group!



Dear Tom,

This is a great question, and this is the first time I've been asked it - it's a perfect engineer or IT person's question, because a lot of folks with less analytical perspectives wouldn't even stop to think about this issue, I imagine.

First off, I wouldn't split up the skills on your resume and attach a timeframe to each one. The fewer lists and tables on your resume, the better. Of course, somewhere you'll need to list your technical cred items, but telling stories (like the wonderful story you've just shared with us - that is, a narrative version of how you got a product from requirements to launch) is much stronger. That being said, some companies will ask you (in an online application form, or in an interview) exactly how much time you've spent doing X, Y and Z.

You will tie yourself into knots trying to quantify the exact amount of time you've spent in each of these arenas, and the thing is, if you do that even somewhat accurately you'll end up underselling your skills. We're entitled to credit for analysis time when we're coding and vice versa, just to use one example. Most people think about their skills-deployment time this way:

"How long have I been coding, even though I haven't spent all of my time on any job coding? Well, heck, I guess I've been coding for about twelve years, along with the other things I've been doing. Voila! I've been coding for twelve years."

It's the same way with particular languages, tools, applications and protocols. The question is "When did I touch this thing for the first time? 1990? That's nineteen years ago. If I've been using it since then, even if not continuously, I've got 19 years of experience with it ['it' in this case being Lego Mindstorm]."

Cheers! Liz
p.s. Thanks for your kind words.
p.p.s. I'm not sure there was Lego Mindstorm in 1990.

Ten Questions Never to Ask on a Job Interview

10 Questions Never to Ask in Job Interviews
by Liz Ryan

You know enough to bring a list of questions to a job interview. When the interviewer asks you, "So, do you have any questions for me?" the last thing? You want to say is "No." But that could be the best option if you're at a loss for words, because some interview questions are better left unasked.
Here are 10 highly unsuitable interview questions that should never make an appearance, unless you don't want the job:

1. "What does your company do?"
This was a reasonable interview question in 1950 or in 1980, before the Internet existed. Today, it's your job to research any company you're interviewing with before setting foot in the door. We need to show up for a job interview knowing what the employer does, who its competitors are, and which of its accomplishments (or challenges) have made the news lately.

2. "Are you going to do a background check?"
It is amazing how many job candidates ask this question, which provokes alarm on the part of the interviewer, instead of the more general, "Can you please tell me a little about your selection process, from this point on?" Lots of people have credit issues that cause them worry during a job search, or aren't sure how solid their references from a previous job might be. If you're invited for a second interview, you can broach any sensitive topics from your past then. Asking "Will you do a background check?" makes you look like a person with something to hide.

3. "When will I be eligible for a raise?"
Companies fear underpaying people almost as much as they fear overpaying them, because a person who's underpaid vis-a-vis his counterparts in the job market is a person with one eye on the career sites. Instead of asking about your first raise before you've got the job, you can ask (at a second interview) "Does your organization do a conventional one-year performance and salary review?"

4. "Do you have any other jobs available?"
A job search requires quick thinking about straight talk, and if a job is far below your abilities, you're better off saying so than beating around the bush with this question. You don't have to take yourself out of the running; you can say, "The job sounds interesting, but frankly I was earning 30% more and supervising people in my last job. Could you help me understand the career path for this role?" That's the cue for the interviewer, if he or she is on the ball, to highlight another job opening that might exist.

5. "How soon can I transfer to another position?"
You're broadcasting "I'm outta here at the first chance" when you ask this question. If you like the job, take the job. If it's not for you, wait for the right opportunity. Almost every employer will keep you in your seat for at least one year before approving an internal transfer, so a job-search bait-and-switch probably won't work out the way you'd hoped.

6. "Can you tell me about bus lines to your facility?"
Get online and research this yourself. It's not your employer's problem to figure out how you get to work

To read the full story, please jump here!

I Don't Like to Praise Myself. Is That Bad?

Dear Liz,

I've been to the outplacement sessions my company purchased for me
and I've been to networking classes. I still cannot get comfortable
with the idea that I should write (in cover letters and in my
resume) "I am smart" and "I am a great communicator" and "I am
talented." Am I just hung-up or what?

Thanks,

Edyta

---- LIZ REPLIES: -------------------

Dear Edyta,

Let's see - how long have you been communicating with other people,
at work and at home? I'm guessing you've got somewhere between 25 and
65 years of experience communicating with people. During all that
time, have you ever said to a complete stranger, "I'm smart" or "I'm
a great communicator" or "I'm talented"? Of course not.

The advice is wrong, and your gut is right. We don't need to and
absolutely shouldn't write things like "I am smart and capable" in a
resume or a cover letter, on a LinkedIn profile or anywhere else. We
shouldn't, because it's tacky and unprofessional and impolite. We
also don't need to! We can DEMONSTRATE these things far more
effectively and convincingly than we can assert them.

If you read a Personals ad that said "I am a smart, witty, cool guy
[or gal]" would you be impressed? Most of us would groan and
think "Ick." It's not pleasant to be in the presence of that sort of
self-adulation. We feel sorry for the person who writes that type of
thing, because s/he seems to lack an understanding of how people
communicate with one another.

It's the same way in job-search correspondence, which is, after all,
a form of communication. It's just like conversation. If we say "I'm
smart and talented" people read our materials and think "Well,
everyone says that, and if you are those things, why don't you prove
it instead of talking about?" If we write, instead, "I was pleased to
be chosen for the team to launch our firm's private-banking business
in Russia, and to beat our targets by four hundred percent" then
we've accomplished far more than our self-praise could ever have
done, in three ways:

1) We're being specific.
2) We're sharing a fact that could be checked out, if someone wanted
to verify the information.
3) We're talking about what happened in the real world, rather than
about how we see ourselves. The reader can decide for him- or herself
whether the fact is impressive. We're not saying "See how impressive
I am!"

Trust your gut, Edyta, and steer clear of the hackneyed, resume-
sinking verbiage that begs the resume-screener to believe in our
fabulousness. We don't need it, and it's demeaning to write. Use
examples and stories, instead, and your clever way with words to
share who you are and what you've done - just as in face-to-face
conversation.

Cheers -- Liz

I Showed Up vs. I Left a Wake

Dear friends,

I have been reviewing resumes like crazy lately. Evidently a lot of
people have "Get a new resume" on their 2009 To-Do list.

Here's one item that jumps out at me. A huge amount of resume 'real
estate' in most of the resumes I see is spent describing what the
resume's owner did each day on each of his or her jobs.

Here's an example:

WISE POTATO CHIPS
Customer Service Manager 2001 - 2004

Led a department of six customer service reps, reporting to the
Director of Operations. Hired, trained and managed staff to handle
incoming calls. Created reports detailing calls received and
answered, hold times and problem resolution. Represented the
department at management meetings.

-- This kind of stuff, I call "I Showed Up" information. It
says, "Believe it or not, after I got the job, I did all the stuff
that the job required." This is a waste of resume space. We already
know what a Customer Service Manager is expected to do. We could
guess that you hired and trained staff and created reports.

A better use of your precious resume real estate is to invest it in
the I Left a Wake category. While you were working at that job, what
did you make better? What did you add to the mix, what big problems
did you solve, how did you leave the place more functional than it
was when you got there? Here's the Customer Service section rewritten
in I Left a Wake form:

WISE POTATO CHIPS
Customer Service Manager 2001 - 2004

When I arrived, our six-person Customer Service department had 14-
minute average wait times and a 68% customer-sat rating. Via regular
group discussion, a peer mentoring program launch and the use of
group incentives, we reached two-minute hold times and 91% customer-
sat levels in one year.


Both approaches use the same number of words. The I Left a Wake
approach is always stronger! Is your resume a litany of what you did
at nine o'clock and ten o'clock and two-thirty in the afternoon? If
so, you want to shift it to show the reader how you left your mark.

Cheers! Liz

How to Manage the Networking Coffee or Lunch Date

Hi Liz:

Could you share some tips & suggestions as to what to do and talk about
during the meeting when you are face to face with the "new" network contact for
lunch or coffee?

My biggest challenge is establishing the small talk and developing the right
formula for what to say and what to ask. Also the proper follow up and thank you
note after the meeting, thanking the person for their time & helpful
suggesrions, or next contact.

Thanks again for your tips & suggestions.

Thanks

Sammy


Dear Sammy,

The easiest and friendliest way to conduct a lunch-or-coffee networking
conversation is to interview the person you're with. That's interview - not
interrogate! The person's answers to your simple questions dictate the direction
of the conversation. So, rather than a list of prepared questions, you might
start with:

YOU: Thanks so much for meeting with me, Jane.
JANE: No problem at all, Sammy. Horace thought we'd have a lot to talk about.
YOU: Well, I'd love to learn about you. I understand you're in the pet food
industry....?

Almost any starting point is okay - your task is to learn a ton about the person
you're with and to establish a bond by listening carefully and
relating/responding to what's being said.

But wait, isn't the point of the meeting to have this person know a lot more
about YOU?

Ix-nay -- your purpose is to create trust, to develop the kind of
work-friendship that would make this new acquaintance feel comfortable referring
you to a person who could help you -- a hiring manager, a friend, whatever. And
that only comes about when you are sincerely curious and involved in what he or
she, your lunch-or-coffee-mate, has to say.

Naturally, you'll be just as quick to offer any help that you can to him or her.
A common and deadly networking pitfall is to imagine that, as a person in need
of a job, you have a special privilege to accept free help and advice, and no
special obligation to reciprocate.

At some point in the conversation, every well-brought-up new person you meet
will say "But enough about me! I'd love to learn about you." Is there a risk
that that table-turning will never happen during the hour or 90 minutes you
spend together? Yes!! Not everyone is especially well-brought-up. That's okay -
you're bound to politely interview and listen to the person you're with, firstly
and foremostly :-), nonetheless. If the meeting results in a one-hour, one-way
exchange and you never get your job-search spiel out of your mouth, it's no
tragedy. Better that outcome, than the opposite one - that you regale your
coffee partner with your job-search story and create no glue whatsoever.

In the best case, you'll learn a ton about your new acquaintance and vice versa;
then your lunchmate will say "How can I help you, Sam?" and you'll say "I am
very grateful for the question! I'm eager to expand my network. Perhaps there is
someone you can think of who might have thoughts, advice or leads related to my
job search, who'd be a good person for me to meet and who might enjoy meeting
me, also?"

In your post-meeting followup message, you'll thank your new acquaintance for
his or her time; recount something specific that he or she told you - a piece of
advice is the best choice - with your specific note of gratitude for that; and
thank him or her for offering to make an introduction, if indeed that happened
(this is also a reminder to actually make the introduction, as this kind of
to-do item can be easily forgotten). A couple of big Don'ts are:

1) Don't subscribe this new acquaintance to your blog or email newsletter
without asking permission to do so. Horrors!
2) Don't introduce another person to your new acquaintance - after all, you
barely know him or her - until/unless the relationship deepens over time and
until you've asked specific permission to do that.
3) Don't 'poach' an introduction to someone your new pal knows, by contacting
the person you're interested in meeting and name-dropping your new friend's
name. That's a cardinal networking sin.

Making a new contact/acquaintance is not a transaction; we can't expect a job
offer to come during coffee or even as a direct result of that coffee meeting.
That can be hard for job-seeking networkers to accept. Networking is a process
of planting seeds. Some of them will grow and bear fruit. All of them need
cultivation - and that's hard, considering how seldom we see even our true-blue,
long-term friends! That's why we say that a job search is a job. This type of
inside-out networking (you're the center of your own networking circle, and you
network from the inside out) is one-third of the puzzle. The other two puzzle
pieces are targeted employer outreach,
and thoughtful, well-researched responses to posted job ads and
third-party-recruiter overtures.

Offer Negotiations and Oliver Twist

Dear Liz,

I got an offer for a job that pays $48K. My last job paid $62K. I
understand that job offers aren't going to necessarily be generous
right now and I also can see that jobs aren't as plentiful as they
might be. But, this is a big drop. Also, the job requires a huge
amount of experience in a specialized field, which I have.

I'm working through a headhunter and he told me, "Take the offer." He
said, "Don't negotiate." That feels like a huge red flag to me. I am
tempted to say to him, "Tell them that I'd like to take the job but I
need to start at around $52K." They could rescind the offer, I guess.
But what kind of company would do that? What are your thoughts?

yours,

Mitch (p.s. I can't live on $48K. I would go into debt having the job
at that salary.)

------------ LIZ REPLIES:-----------------------------------

Dear Mitch,

If you couldn't get a good job after lots of searching, you'd begin
to make a series of changes. You'd get a smaller apartment, you'd
take a stopgap job outside of your profession, perhaps you'd move to
a less expensive area. People are doing all of these things. I'm not
suggesting that you do any of them, only raising the question: what's
the worst that could happen?

For sure, you should negotiate the offer. You're merely asking the
search guy to tell the employer how you view their offer. That's his
job, by the way. Any company that would actually rescind an offer to
a candidate who showed a little backbone and self-esteem is a company
you don't want to work for. Remember Oliver Twist? If you didn't read
the book, it's about a little kid (Oliver) who is in the poorhouse,
and he gets a bowl of gruel to eat, and the kids draw lots. The loser
will be the kid who has to go up the head guy and ask for more gruel.
Oliver draws the short straw, so he goes up to the head guy with his
bowl and says "Please sir, I want some more" and that gets him kicked
out of the poorhouse. Over the years this poorhouse manager, Mr.
Bumble, has come to be viewed as the personification of
scrupulousness and meanness.

A company that would actually rescind a job offer for the crime of
negotiating is not only mean, they're fear-based; they don't want
anyone around who knows his value and will speak up. What do you
think it would be like to work there?

Let's be clear - it does happen. A friend of mine got a job offer by
phone two weeks ago, and when he said "Is there any flexibility on
the salary?" the guy said "You know what, I've got five people on my
list to call, if you turn us down." The only imaginable answer to
that bullpucky is "CALL AWAY, AMIGO!" because you can't afford to
work for a company like that. More than money is involved when you
take a job, of course. It's like a marriage. A bad employer can trash
your resume, your reputation, your emotional state and your physical
health. It's no joke.

The essence of negotiation is choice. You have the ability to turn
down this job, even if you'd rather not to do it. Let's say you ask
them to move to $52K. Maybe they say "We can do $50K." Maybe they
say "We can do $48K with a review in six months." Maybe they
say "Sorry, we can only do $48K." What have you lost? You can still
accept the offer at that point.

If they did rescind the offer, you'd have dodged a bullet. You're not
asking for the moon, Mitch. It is unethical for a search guy to tell
you "Don't negotiate," especially since he must know that the company
is paying under market (even this market). Don't let him talk you out
of doing what your gut tells you to do. Follow your instinct, Mitch,
and keep us posted!

Info on Liz's career-guidance and job-search programs is here.