Fire Your Boss (14 page)
Authors: Stephen M. Pollan,Mark Levine
Tags: #Psychology, #Self Help, #Business
When I explain to clients that they need to look for a job while still employed, many express fear that their current boss will find out. I’m sure some of you have that same fear. My response is: “So what? What can your boss do?”
Assuming you’ve been doing everything you can to meet his needs, as outlined in the previous chapter, his response will be fear, not anger. He’ll be afraid he’ll lose you and will do everything he can to keep you. Your job fishing will serve as a wake-up call and could lead to your getting a raise, a promotion, or some other perks. He’ll do whatever he can to make sure you stay there, keeping him from having to go to meetings he dreads, or bringing him his breakfast every morning and picking up his dry cleaning at lunch.
In cases where it’s a toss-up between your current job and a job offer, you should actually come out and tell your boss about the offer. Explain that you were approached about another job, but would prefer to stay where you are now…if your boss can meet some of the advantages the potential new job offers. He’ll either meet the new offer, or not. If he does, you can stay where you are. If he doesn’t, you take the new job.
Larry Endowsky is an optician who has excelled working in the same optometry office for the past three years. Early on Larry realized that the optometrist owner loved giving exams but hated interacting with patients. As a result, Larry became what he called “the social director” of the practice. He met patients in the waiting room, took them to the preliminary tests, escorted them to the optometrist’s office for the examination, and then brought them over to the eyeglass area for selection and fitting. Larry was paid comparatively well, but that didn’t stop him from looking for work. He was called for an interview for a manager’s position with a one-hour eyeglass chain store that had recently opened in a nearby mall. The optometrist’s wife saw Larry being interviewed while she was at the mall shopping and rushed home to tell her husband. The next day Larry was offered a raise as well as a share of the business.
WHAT TO SAY IF YOUR BOSS FINDS OUT
If your boss finds out you’re looking for another job and asks you about it, the best response is confirmation, not denial. You want to act nonchalant, stressing that it was nothing out of the ordinary and that’s why you didn’t think it merited bringing it to your boss’s attention. Then add some superficially reassuring words that also carry a subtext. Say something like this:
“Yes, I’ve been contacted about other opportunities. I get calls from headhunters every four or five months. You know I’m not happy with the money I’m earning here, but don’t worry — I don’t want to leave.”
Even if you haven’t been able to meet your boss’s needs before he learns of your job fishing, it will have no impact on your situation. We are all contingent workers today anyway, and no one knows that better than your boss. Don’t deny you’re job fishing if asked. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of. You’re just being a savvy employee, doing everything you can to solidify your stream of income and explore your options. (See the box above: What to Say If Your Boss Finds Out.)
If your boss continues to express shock at your lack of loyalty, it could be a sign he was thinking of terminating you sometime soon and is upset you’re potentially throwing off his desired timing. In that case you’re a step ahead of the process by having launched your job-fishing mission ahead of time. You didn’t lose anything by looking for a job while still working. In fact, you helped yourself by getting a jump on the process.
Another fear expressed by clients whom I tell to “go fishing,” which I assume some of you share, is being offered two jobs at the same time. My response is, “Why is that a problem?”
It’s really amazing. As employees we have been beaten down for so long that we’re afraid of being in demand, rather than being a supplicant. It’s like the stories you read of freed slaves after the American Civil War who, having been so psychologically (not to mention physically) beaten down, were frightened of freedom. If you’re offered two jobs at the same time that’s a good thing.
Can you imagine a business owner saying, “I’m worried two people will want to buy my product”? Of course not: competition boosts revenues. If you need evidence of that, just go online and look at what some things sell for on eBay, the Internet auction site. You can find items that are currently for sale in retail stores being sold at auction on eBay for far more than they cost in a store. Why? Because more than one buyer is interested and the multiple buyers get caught up competing with each other. The same can happen when you go job fishing.
If you receive more than one offer at the same time, and you’ve still got your current job to boot, you’re not facing a problem; you’re in a terrific situation. Decide which of the two new offers you find most attractive. My advice would be, as you might guess, to choose the one that offers the most compensation. (See the box above: How to Negotiate an Initial Salary.) Select a few areas where the lesser offer has some advantages, and go back to the person making the preferred offer, subtly asking her to match those advantages. (See the box on page 116: How to Leverage Job Offers.) If it’s a toss-up between the winner of the two offers and your current job, go back to your current employer and ask her to meet the new offer.
HOW TO NEGOTIATE AN INITIAL SALARY
The best opportunity you’ll ever have to increase your income is when you’re negotiating your initial salary on a job. You are at your most powerful, since you’re the potential hero who has to be convinced to come on board.
The secret is to keep your mouth shut. If you put the first number on the table the negotiation will be about lowering your number. If, on the other hand, your potential boss puts the first number on the table, the negotiation will be about increasing her number.
If you’re asked how much you’re looking for, say you’re looking for market value for someone of your skills and abilities. If you’re pushed further, don’t dance around the issue too much. Instead, offer up a high figure. What’s high? Well, hopefully you’ve done some research. But in any case, you can assume the company has a range rather than a specific number in mind. Any advertised number will represent the low end of that range.
Let’s say they are advertising the position for $45,000 or “midforties.” They were probably paying the previous job holder $50,000. But they’re probably willing to pay upwards of $55,000. If pushed to come up with a number, my suggestion would be to say $60,000, in an effort to end up at the high end of the range. Simply rationalize any concessions you must make by saying things like, “Well, I am intrigued by the challenges this job would offer,” or “This job would give me the chance to enter a field in which I’m fascinated.”
HOW TO LEVERAGE JOB OFFERS
If you’d like to use one job offer as leverage against another offer, or against your current boss, you should say something like this:
“As you know, my stream of income is very important to me. From time to time I’m approached by headhunters about positions that are open. I’ve been offered another position. I would prefer to continue working with you [or, accept your offer], but I need you to know that this other firm has offered me…”
If you’re afraid such obvious blackmail could put a bull’s-eye on your back, you can have the news come from a third party. Either casually let the office snitch know about your being offered another job, or use a trusted person — a client or the president’s secretary — to pass along the news.
Do you have a sense now of how much of a difference job fishing can make in your work life? Not only will it let you choose the timing of your departure from a job, and potentially pick and choose from among multiple job offers, but it offers the best chance to dramatically increase your income. The largest salary increases don’t come from negotiating regular raises with your boss. Those are generally limited to single-digit percentages not much higher, if at all, than the rate of inflation. Jumps in salary come when you shift jobs or, excuse the term, blackmail your current employer.
Frankie Martin has the rare ability to look at someone and instantly figure out what clothes she should wear to look her best. A graduate of New York City’s Fashion Institute of Technology, she’s the granddaughter of a neighbor of mine. Frankie took a job as a salesperson in the juniors’ department of a large department store, more interested at first in the employee discount than the salary. As each month went by, increasing numbers of young girls from New York’s wealthy families were showing up at the store, and specifically asking for Frankie to wait on them. While Frankie wasn’t enamored with retailing, she knew the job market was depressed in New York, and so, after a consultation with me, she concentrated her job-fishing efforts in the retail fashion business. She soon received an offer to be an assistant manager at a competing department store. Two days later she received a similar offer from a well-known women’s specialty store, run by a former fashion model. When she got back in touch with the department store and expressed reticence, the store changed its proposal, offering to make her a personal shopper for its best young-adult customers. Frankie grabbed the job, which had a salary that was double what she was making.
The final objection I get when I suggest my clients start job fishing is that it’s impossible to look constantly for work while still working. I’ll give you the same answer I give them: difficult, perhaps; impossible, no.
First, remember that by looking for emotional, psychological, and spiritual satisfaction from your life, not your work, you won’t be spending as much time on the job as before. By making meeting your boss’s needs your primary focus, you also won’t be under any added pressure to stay late. That means we’re not talking about adding two hours a week to a schedule already filled with sixty hours of work. Adding those two hours of job-fishing time to a typical forty-hour workweek doesn’t seem like much of a burden. Especially not when you consider the potential payoff.
AVOIDING EMPLOYMENT AGENCY SCAMS
Unfortunately, the employment agency industry attracts more than its share of shady operators, particularly when unemployment is high. Here are some tips for steering clear of the rotten apples.
Make sure to visit their office. Scam boiler-room operations will want to interact only over the telephone or via e-mail.
Check their professional standing. See if they’re members of the National Association of Personnel Services, the American Management Association, or the Society for Human Resource Managers.
Beware advance fees. Walk away if it costs money to walk in the door or to take tests. Once an agency has your money it has little motivation to help you further. Pay a fee only if you land a job.
Steer clear of agencies that place fake classified ads or that have 900 numbers.
Don’t sign a contract without first reading it thoroughly…at home. Watch out for agencies that push you to sign right away, claiming it’s “a standard form.”
Second, a lot of your job-fishing work, as you’ll see in the next chapter, can come during your personal rather than work life. I don’t mean you need to give up playing golf to go job fishing. Playing golf can
become
job fishing. In addition, you’ll also be leveraging your time by having others, particularly headhunters and employment agencies, do some of your job fishing for you.
Third, and last, job fishing needn’t be that time-consuming or draining. Since you’re not under the time pressures of having to get a job as soon as possible, you can take a more deliberate, planned approach.
That’s what I explained to Jared Edwards after he told me about his history of recent employment woes. Jared and his wife had come to see me for help in cleaning up their credit prior to purchasing a home. During the eighteen months Jared had been unemployed the family had relied heavily on credit cards and had then strung some of the banks out by skipping and delaying payments. Their survival efforts had done a number on their credit rating. Jared’s natural sales skills had helped him close a few big deals selling the computerized educational systems, despite the shortcomings of his territory, so the Edwardses had been able to pay most of their debts and put some money aside. I spent a great deal of time working on employment with both Jared and his wife. Having so recently suffered through a spell of unemployment, Jared was quick to embrace the concept of job fishing.
Just as it made sense to plan out your overall work plan, so I think it makes sense to plan your job fishing. Take out your now well-worn pad and head a page Job Fishing. On it, start making notes of all the things you can do to stay abreast of job opportunities.
Turn back to your work plan and note the alternate paths you discovered. Write those, along with your current work path, in a list on your job-fishing page.
Take one morning or afternoon of an upcoming weekend and go to your nearest college library. Sit down with a reference librarian and ask him for help finding the top two trade or professional magazines dealing with each of the work paths on your list. Write those titles down on your pad. Scan some back issues, looking for the names of any headhunters or employment agencies that seem to be active in the fields. Again, make a note of them on your pad. (See the box on page 118: Avoiding Employment Agency Scams.) Spend a few hours searching the Internet for any sites that seem to offer a decent collection of ads relevant to your needs. Write down the URLs.