Treat Your Job Move Like the $500K Investment It Is

Imagine you had a half million dollars, but could only invest it in one place. You’d probably do a substantial amount of analysis and evaluation before pulling the trigger, to ensure your investment was not only wise, but better than the other options out there.

I switched jobs about a month ago. While contemplating different paths I could take, I realized more than ever before the significance of choosing the next step in my career. Not only would be I determining the organization that would support my household over the next several years, but I would be choosing the people that I would spend more time with than I spend with my family.

But the thing that hit me the hardest was this: I was selecting an environment that would be an investment in me. I was actually investing in myself — who I would become, what habits I’d espouse, and how I would think.

At first this scared me to death. But then it became exhilarating, because (to a large degree) I was the one that had the luxury of making this decision.

And because I’d had M&A (mergers and acquisitions) due diligence processes stuck in my head for well over a year, I decided to treat my next job opportunity like an M&A decision. The results were amazing.

Instead of becoming infatuated by titles, perks, the office location, or an insignificant differential in salary, I focused most on the health of the organization. I created a scorecard of factors that would guide me in my investment, and it boiled down to these 5 elements:

1. Employee NPS / CSAT. I’ve learned that companies that take care of their employees have employees that take care of their customers. I did back-channel references as well, to get the real scoop.
2. Product NPS / CSAT. Because I work in Product Management, I wanted a solid foundation. I’d tried fixer-uppers before, and decided that I’m not a good fit for the years of drudgery they oftentimes require. In addition to the stats, I asked a lot about the tech stack — how well it’s maintained, and how scalable it is. This balances the lagging NPS / CSAT metric with a predictive measure.
3. Revenue growth. It’s not all about the money, but I’m not going to invest in a company that isn’t doing well financially. I also asked a lot about future plans to convince me the growth plan was legitimate.
4. Org chart. Getting access to the org chart, I started to do some reconnaissance on the exec team, my would-be manager, my potential peers, and the teams I would be inheriting. Combining this with back-channel feedback, and suddenly I had a great idea of what it’s really like.
5. Company vision and strategy. Because product strategy goes hand-in-hand with the company vision and plan, it was imperative to know the company had the appropriate direction for a long-term investment.

When interviewing at various opportunities, I was astounded at how many companies had fatal results in one or more categories. Product NPS in the negative? Pass. They don’t track employee happiness at all? Peeking at Glassdoor tells me they probably should. Application stuck in a technology that is embarrassing to even mention? Nope.

I originally had some concerns that the recruiters and hiring managers wouldn’t divulge this information (or my many follow-up inquiries), and in a few situations, that was the case. But overall, I found folks quite willing to share. And when they didn’t answer my questions, it was usually apparent why. Either way, I learned what I needed.

So I’m a month into my new gig, and I love it. No company is perfect, but I landed somewhere that is pretty darn close.

As of now, I’m very satisfied with my investment in myself, and that is ultimately what matters.