The Google Resume (21 page)

Identify a Mentor

A mentor is more than just someone who can teach you—she is also your advocate. Just like a parent wants to see his child succeed, a leader wants to see her protégé succeed.

Seek out a mentor who has the following traits:

• Successful.
  While your peers can, of course, give you good advice as well, you’ll generally get better advice from someone who is 5 to 15 years ahead of you. Less than 5 years and they won’t have too much wisdom; more than 15 years and they’re likely to be out of touch with your issues.
  
• Similar goals.
  Advice from people who are successful in very different fields is likely to be unhelpful at best, and detrimental at worst. What do you think the successful entrepreneur will tell you about your goal to be a VP at Microsoft? Probably something about bureaucracy and how you can’t ever really effect change. Maybe he’s right, maybe he’s not, but that’s hardly helpful if that’s your goal. People with similar goals are likely to understand what did and didn’t work for them, and will also be able to relate the experiences of their peers to you.
  
• Similar background.
  Your prior background will heavily affect your ability to accomplish your goals. Someone who went to a far stronger, or weaker, school, is unlikely to be able to tell you how to leverage or handle your school’s name. Seek out those with a similar education and career background, as their struggles will probably closely match you.
  
• Supportive, encouraging, and trustworthy.
  Your mentor is not just there to offer advice; she is also there to encourage you. A good mentor will enable you to open up about your concerns and will help to ease them. She’ll be supportive of you, whether you fail or succeed. And, of course, you need to be able to trust her to be honest with you when there’s something negative you need to hear.
  
• Has time for you.
  Though this should be obvious, it’s often overlooked. Your mentor needs to have the time for you. What’s the point of a mentor if they’re never there to chat or to connect you with the right resources?
  

If you read through the preceding five points, you’ll note that what you’re essentially looking for is someone who’s just like you, only a few steps ahead. And that’s a good thing, even if it’s difficult for some people to find. If you can’t find the “perfect” mentor, that’s OK. There’s no reason you can’t have multiple mentors.

Many people ask me if managers can be mentors. The answer is that, like most things in life, it depends. Your manager can certainly serve as a mentor in many ways, but you can’t necessarily trust him to be unbiased. His first priority is to your company, not to you. If you’re a star performer, will he really encourage you to leave, even if that’s what’s best for your career?

Promotions and Raises

Annual and semiannual reviews are not just a time to get feedback; they’re also a time to get promoted or get a raise—or both. To position yourself effectively for these opportunities, you’ll want to think ahead and to carefully craft your own evaluation to make it clear that you deserve the boost.

How to Get Promoted

Many companies, including Microsoft and Google, have some system of “career levels,” enabling an employee to get promoted without a title or any other substantial change. Microsoft, for example, utilizes a universal level system, where employees enter at a level (usually between 58 and 65), depending on their prior experience and their new title. A promotion might constitute moving from a level 60 to a 61. Google uses a somewhat similar system, but instead assigns engineers to titles like Software Engineer I, II, or III (and then on to Staff or other titles). Moving from one title to the next may not change your work much if at all.

Such companies (as well as many other companies) tend to have well-defined metrics for what attributes an employee at a particular level should exhibit. These may be written in a formal document, but if not, have a discussion with your manager.

By examining the attributes you need to have, you can make sure to acquire the relevant skills or just demonstrate that you have them. If the next level up requires being able to lead key feature design, then ask your manager to let you take on some of these responsibilities. The earlier you plan for promotion, the better.

And remember, it’s usually easiest to get promoted when you show that you’re already performing at that next level.

How to Negotiate a Raise

In many ways, getting a raise is tougher than getting a promotion. At least a promotion, even if it includes a raise as well, involves your asking for something more in exchange for contributing more to the company. A raise, however, just means that the company is paying you a bit more and they get little else additional out of it—except, of course, a reduced chance that you’ll leave.

Companies understand that raises are a part of doing business and, by following a few suggestions, you can increase the chances that you’ll get your much deserved raise.

Choose the Right Time

There are better times and worse times to request a raise, and in the middle of tough times for your company is probably not one of them. It may, in fact, have a detrimental effect, as it calls attention to just how much (or how little) you are worth.

The ideal time to ask for a raise is when things are going well for your company
and
its competitors. A company’s primary motivation in giving you a raise is to ensure that you stick around. If they can’t afford your raise, or if there’s little risk of your leaving, you’re unlikely to get it.

Additionally, you should ask for a raise when it’s convenient for your boss. After all, even if he wants to grant it to you, it may not be his decision. You need to ensure that he has the time and energy to go out and fight for you. If he’s busy with other projects, or he’s fighting for approval on other things (particularly things that increase your team’s financial cost), he may not be a great advocate for you.

Do Your Homework

Because a company’s primary motivation in giving a raise is to prevent you from leaving, you’ll have a much better case if you can show that you’re underpaid. Web sites like Payscale and
Glassdoor.com
can be useful tools in assessing how your pay compares with the industry pay. Be careful, however, in relying too heavily on that. Both web sites rely on averages that users submit in exchange for getting something else. Users may rush through it and provide inaccurate information. Many people have found that this data does not match up with their own experience.

It may be more useful to ask your friends, or even very trustworthy coworkers, for their salary information. People are surprisingly open about their salary if they can trust you and if they understand why you’re asking.

How to Ask

Your request for a raise should be backed up with solid reasons, and “Sally needs braces” is not a reason. Reasons include your accomplishments and what you’ve done for the company. If you can quantify your contributions in a dollar amount, that’s even better. What company wouldn’t fight to retain someone who was contributing millions to the company?

If you have coworkers who have been through this process and that you can confide in, you may want to consider asking them for their advice. They may be able to direct you on what people actually value or don’t value. This may be different from what the company states publicly. For instance, many companies state that they value employees mentoring new employees. The company likely recognizes that mentorship is important in general, but this doesn’t mean that it’s strongly weighted during the performance evaluation process.

Finally, much like in the offer negotiation process, you should shoot for more than what you can realistically expect. The company is more likely to meet you in the middle than to give you everything you ask for.

How to Handle Rejection

Your boss said no? Don’t despair—that’s common. Instead of just walking out of her office, ask her what would need to change to get the promotion or raise. Is it the company’s financial situation? Do you need to take on more leadership responsibilities? What specifically would that entail?

Follow up this conversation with an e-mail summarizing this information. Then, the next time you ask for a promotion or raise, you can cite how you’ve done everything she’s asked for.

If the issue is that the company simply can’t afford it, consider alternative ways that the company could reward you. Perhaps they could let you work from home one day per week?

Finally, if your chances of getting a promotion or raise look poor for the foreseeable future, perhaps you should consider finding a new position—outside the company. What’s the point of sticking around if there are no additional rewards for you?

How and When to Quit

Once upon a time, people got a job and stuck with it for nearly their entire lives. But now, much to the chagrin of the older generation, this fierce loyalty has been replaced by an expectation that you have at least two or three jobs by age 30. Stick around too long and you may be considered “tainted” by that company’s culture.

I don’t subscribe to that theory, personally, but I do think many people stick around at early companies for longer than is productive. If your goal is to move up into senior management at that company (or even a similar company), then by all means, stay. Otherwise, you might want to look into leaving earlier, and this where this advice comes in.

Should You Quit?

People quit for a few main reasons: (1) to change/improve their career path, (2) higher pay elsewhere, or (3) unhappiness.

If your goal in leaving is to find a place where you’re happier, it’s worth considering other options within the company. For example, if you have a bad boss or frustrating coworkers, you might be able to move to a new team. If you are bored, you might want to ask for additional responsibilities or to switch positions within the company.

Remember that there is value in sticking with the same company. Not only are frequent job hoppers looked down upon (read: you only get so many short stints on your résumé before companies get concerned), but it’s usually easier to switch roles within the same company than to switch companies and positions. When you transition roles within one firm, you have already built trust and the firm understands your relevant skills at a great depth. Trying to switch positions at firms is much harder.

How to Not Burn Bridges

If you’ve ever had a job you hated, you’ve probably dreamed of quitting in some epic way. A public memo citing everything your boss did wrong. Spelling “I Quit” with spaghetti on the cafeteria floor. Borrowing the most annoying children of your friends to run wild around the office. It would be refreshing and—hopefully, I don’t need to tell you this—incredibly stupid.

Even if you don’t intend to have some massive blowout quitting ceremony, your departure is still likely to be a sensitive time, and it’s all too easy to burn bridges. It’s too small a world out there to do that; you may need your coworkers for references, or you might even end up working with them down the road.

To avoid leaving a foul taste in their mouths, do the following:

• Give sufficient notice.
  Two weeks is considered a bare minimum, but depending on the importance of your role and the situation, longer might be appropriate. At a small company, extra time may be appropriate due to the difficulty of finding someone to fill in.
  
• Find an appropriate time.
  Leaving halfway through a project or just before a deadline should be avoided, where possible. Ideally, you should leave as a project ends or even right when a project is beginning.
  
• Voice concerns early.
  If you’re leaving because of specific things about the company you don’t like, particularly if these are changeable, voice these concerns early. It’s in your best interest to give your boss a chance to fix things.
  
• Tell your manager first.
  As tempting as it may be, don’t tell anyone that you’re leaving until your manager knows. It could get very ugly if he hears it from someone else first.
  
• Leave on a positive note.
  Work extra hard in your final days to make sure that your work is wrapped up or at least passed on to an appropriate person. You’ll be remembered fondly for putting in the additional effort.
  

If you’re leaving to go to a direct competitor, you should be aware that you might be walked out immediately without being given the chance to finish out even two weeks. During my time in Google’s Seattle office, where many of the hires came directly from Microsoft, I would estimate that about half of them were escorted off the premises the day they gave their notice. Take a lesson from them and have your desk
discreetly
cleared out before you talk to your manager.

Should I Find a New Job First?

When I left Google, I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do next. People thought I was crazy to not have a specific job lined up. I wasn’t. I wanted to take several months to travel, work a bit on some side projects, and then find a start-up to join. Eventually. Once I found one I liked enough. I was in no rush.

There are some downsides, of course, to not finding a job first. First, you may lose some negotiating leverage if you’re desperate for a job. Second, you might not be able to afford taking several months off without pay, and you may therefore get pressured into taking a mediocre new job. Third, if it takes you unexpectedly long to find a new job, extended unexplained gaps in your résumé can look suspicious.

However, looking for a job once you’re unemployed has its perks. Namely:

• No pressure.
  If you’re unhappy at your current job, you may be pressured to take something—anything—else. Once you’ve left, you don’t need to be in any rush to find something new. After all, a job means no more vacation.
  
• Search openly.
  Once you’ve left, you can publicly post to Facebook, Twitter, your blog, or wherever, that you’re looking for a new job. There’s no need to hide your job search from your friends, or even your (former) coworkers, and some might know about the perfect position for you.
  
• Extended vacation.
  No more worrying about using up your precious 15 days of paid time off. Now you can take that extended vacation to Europe (or, in my case, South America).
  
• Unlimited time.
  Interviewing for a new position while holding down a current job is tricky. There are only so many “doctor’s appointment” excuses you can use before your manager starts to think that you’re suffering from some terminal illness. Once you’re unemployed, however, you can probably spare some of your suntanning-by-the-pool days for interviews without the lifeguard getting suspicious.
  

This is all predicated on being able to afford to take time off. Even if you’re not too picky, it could easily take six weeks or more to land and start a new job. If you can’t afford to take at least three months off without breaking the bank, you probably do not want the pressure of unemployment.

Going Back to School

Whether we long for the days of beer pong or for the (potentially less memorable) intellectual stimulation, many of us dream of going back to school. The grueling schedule of three hours of class four or five days per week no longer seems so bad after years of 40-or 50-hour workweeks. What’s harder to stomach, however, is the cost: $40k of tuition for a typical private university, plus another $100k perhaps in lost salary.

Still, it tempts us. Maybe we can switch careers. Maybe we can move up in our current career. Maybe it’ll give us the credibility that we need. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

The choice is complex because we never know exactly what we’ll gain or give up by going back to school.

The True Cost of Graduate School

Costs for graduate school range widely, but the important thing to remember is that your tuition is only a fraction of the true cost.

• Tuition.
  Tuition varies based on whether a school is public or private; if public, whether you are in state or out of state; and what the field of study is. A typical private institution will cost around $40k, with tuition, books, and other fees. Tuition at a public school for an in-state student might be as low as $10k.
  
• Lost salary.
  Every year that you’re in grad school is salary that you could be getting but aren’t. Depending on your previous job and the length of your graduate program, that might be $200k or more. This is usually the biggest factor of the costs.
  
• Lost promotions.
  In addition to lost salary while you were getting your master’s degree, you also lost two years of experience. That’s two years of lost promotions and lost raises.
  

By this math, the one additional year I spent getting my master’s degree cost me about $150k. I highly doubt that I got an equivalent bump in earning potential.