It feels like the press and LinkedIn are full of an unsettling narrative of scarcity and layoffs. And certainly for some people, the urgent need for employment includes a precariousness that makes it hard to be picky. I understand that.
But for most of my clients, it’s easy to get a job. It’s hard to get the right job. You only need one, and you’re better able to find that one if you get very clear about what it is, and do the work to understand why solving those problems will light you up and engage your talents in the best kind of way.
There’s a point in the process — LATE in the process — where you evaluate how a particular opportunity will require you to compromise. What things on your wish list you’ll get, and which ones you’ll set aside. And you’ll know, when it’s decision time, what you’re giving up and why that may still be worth it to you.
But if you start from the belief that you’ll definitely need to compromise, it can discourage or stop you from identifying ambitious and clear standards for what you want. In my experience, the people who bring a well-defined, thoughtfully researched understanding of what they want will win opportunities — and have a stronger negotiating position — if they’re up against people who have taken a more vague “I’ll take what I can get,” approach.
I appreciated this quote in this week’s Raw Signal Group newsletter:
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that a renegotiation of work wasn’t possible. That no one’s talking about it any more. That it’s not worth imagining anything better and every employer will be equally bad so you should probably just keep your head down. And feel luckyto have a job.
