Congratulations! You’ve just landed a job offer and you are about to take it. But, wait! There are some important things that you should take into account to avoid regrets in the end. You want to be happy with your new job and you look to spend years with the company, right? Before accepting the offer, you should ask yourself with these questions:
1. Will I Get Paid Sufficiently?
When you apply for a job, of course, it is normal to dream of getting paid sufficiently. There are 2 tiers to how you can get paid appropriately. First, you get paid with the same amount of salary that other inexperienced people within your field earn.
To determine the average salary of somebody else who is in the same link of work with you, do a research using the web. In the event that you found your earning is not as good as how much others earn, you can start look for another job somewhere else. Your salary should be nearly equal with what a new employee in your field is making.
The other tier is to get paid enough for your living. To make it simpler, it means that your salary amount is just sufficient to provide what your family needs, pay your bills and have some extra for savings. When your job makes you earn money that is not enough for all your needs then you should start searching for another opportunity.
2. What Kind of Progressive Wage Model Does the Company Have For Me?
A Progressive Wage Model is a structured career and training path for you with clear expectations of the job scope and KPIs.
Don’t simply look at your starting pay. Ask the company what plans they have to groom you to perform your job better, training frameworks and industry exposure opportunities.
Check out sample Progressive Wage Models of various industries below
Source: NTUC This Week
Is your company planning to tap on SkillsFuture programmes to send staff for industry training? Do they have a mentorship/buddy arrangement in place to ensure you receive good guidance in the first few months? How will your career progress as you become more experienced and productive at your job?
If your company cannot explain what they intend to do with you beyond your current job role, don’t expect to be promoted quickly as there are no plans for you to progress.
3. Will I Feel Good Living Here?
Perhaps, you are about to accept a job offer wherein you will be living at a distance from your place. Think about the place. Pause for a while and start imagining yourself living there. Do you think that you will be happy with your stay in that place? Do you have relatives or friends who live there?
Think of how you will be spending in getting there and going home every day. If the need for transportation will be a bit expensive, you should reconsider the offer.
4. Will I Be Doing Something That Can Make Me Happy?
Most people these days are spending more than 40 hours at work every week and it will account for nearly 25% of your whole week. Are you really willing to spend that in doing something that is not making you happy?
Before accepting a job, you should ensure that the responsibilities you have consist most of those things that you will find enjoyable to carry out. Nobody will ever want to wake up in the morning, go to work and feel miserable throughout the day. Of course, you want to wake up then be a bit excited to be in the office.
5. Will I Explore New Things?
Your new job should be a way for you to learn new things. When you accept a job offer, your reason for doing that should not be because you possess the needed skills. Your new job should help you develop new skills and not simply allow you to repeat whatever you have been doing for the past 5 years.
Reid Hoffman (co-founder of LinkedIN) said it best when he said for some people twenty years of experience is indeed what it is.
But for most others “twenty years of experience” is really one year of experience repeated twenty times”
The ideal job should also play a role in spring boarding you to the next. That won’t be happening if the job you are going to do is more or less similar than before.
6. Are My Potential Workmates Nice?
Your coworkers can either make or break you in your job. You should be with people who are open-minded and cooperative. If you find that your future coworkers are not that good in terms of building good relationships with others then think of choosing another job offer.
It is really hard to find out about this one. The easiest is to speak with other people that you might know who had worked there before. You could easily find them on LinkedIN and send them a message after connecting with them.
In my example above, I have two connections who used to work at OSIM. So they would be the first group of people I will connect to get their opinions of the workplace and the people there.
Importantly find out more about the management. Colleagues come and go but management tend to stay around. And how they behave usually rubs off to how your colleagues would.
So if the common theme is that the management sucks, that probably is going to cut across the organisation.
7. Does the Job Let You Have Time to Enjoy?
Your life should never revolve solely on your work. When the job offer will require you to work for more hours, work even during holidays without flexibility, you should think twice of it. Your career life should not make you feel that you’re stuck.
Again these are not things I reckon the interviewers or hiring managers will tell you honestly if they are so desperate to get someone into the company.
A good way to get that is to check out Glassdoor. You can see from the review above that the company has good work life balance.
If that is something you are aiming for, you should be looking in the right direction.
Conclusion
Landing a job is tough but the last thing you want is to settle for any and regret making that decision later on. Because the time you wasted there could have been time you built something with if you didn’t take up that wrong offer.
So spend some time to evaluate the job offer before making that leap of faith.
Good luck!