Reading Time: 7 minutes Make a Decision About a New Job: What to Think About
This is a collaborative post by Ellie Jo about jobs.
Whether you’re still in the early stages of looking for a new job or you’ve received a job offer, knowing if a job is right for you can take some serious thought. You don’t want to waste your time applying for jobs that aren’t right for you, and you definitely don’t want to accept an offer for a job that’s not a good fit.
There’s a lot to think about if you’re trying to work out whether a job is right for you and if it’s an opportunity that you should go for. Before you accept an offer or even send in an application, consider the following things.
Commute Time
It might not be the first thing that you think of when you’re looking for a new job, but the time it takes to get to work and back is important. When you think about the maximum time or distance that you’re willing to travel, you first have to be realistic about traffic.
What could take half an hour during less busy parts of the day could take two hours during rush hour. Another thing to consider is whether you would really be able to stick with a commute of a certain length. It might be manageable at first, but commuting can be pretty tiring. Will you eventually find the commute exhausting?
Employer Reputation
When you’re looking for work, it’s not just up to employers to assess whether you’re right for the job. It’s also a chance for you to assess the employer and decide if you want to work for them. This can include researching the kind of treatment you can expect from the employer.
Former and current employees might have shared their experiences, or you might be able to find more general information on the reputation that the employer has. This kind of information can help you to decide if they’re really someone you want to work for or if they’re better to avoid
Aligning a Job with Your Values
It’s true that you might not always have the luxury of finding a job that aligns with your personal values. Sometimes a job is just a job, and you need to take whatever is available to you to ensure you can keep earning.
However, if you’re currently employed and looking for new opportunities, you have a bit more freedom to find something that works for you – assuming you’re not trying to get out of a horrible employment situation. When you research the employer, you can check things like their company values, their investments, and their charity affiliations to see if they align with your own views.
Understand the Wage and Benefits
Of course, how you’re going to be compensated for your work is one of the most important things when you’re looking for work. If you’re looking at job postings, you might find that the salary isn’t always advertised.
It’s possible to find more information about what you could be expected to pay by looking at websites where employees have anonymously shared their salaries. If you do have more information about the salary and benefits, you need to make sure you understand exactly what you’re getting. You can use an hours calculator to convert the wage and see how much you will earn weekly, monthly, and yearly. It will also tell you how much you can expect to have after taxes.
What Else Is Out There?
It’s always smart to be aware of the state of the job market. Are there many opportunities out there? If you decide not to apply for a job or even turn down a job offer, is something else likely to come along? If the answer is no, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to take whatever is in front of you.
However, it might be a sign that you should wait until things have changed to keep looking for work. In some cases, it could be a sign that you shouldn’t wait for something better to come along because you have no guarantee that it will.
Do You Have the Skills?
It should go without saying that when you apply for a job, you should have the skills, experience, and certifications that the job description asks you to have. Those that are only recommended or preferred might not be as crucial, but they are likely to help you do the job and settle in more easily.
However, a lot of people will apply for a job despite not meeting the conditions. This might be fine if you’re honest about your skills, but it’s essential to avoid the temptation to lie or embellish the truth. You could find yourself in hot water down the line if you do.
Do You Understand the Role?
Another thing to ask yourself is whether you have a clear understanding of what would be expected of you. Do you understand what the role involves and what your day-to-day duties would be? It’s important to know what will face you if you’re thinking about applying for a job.
This is something to consider before sending an application for a position. You should be able to understand the role if you are invited for an interview or make it to the next round of the recruitment process. It’s also important to understand how your performance will be evaluated and whether you’re up to the task.
Are You Excited About (Or Interested In) the Work?
Not everyone has a passion for their career. Sometimes it’s just work that keeps them stimulated and that they don’t mind doing. But a lot of people do get excited about the things that they do.
Even if the work itself isn’t particularly exciting, maybe you’ll be contributing to something that does excite you. If you don’t think the role sounds very exciting, maybe you’re at least interested in what you will be doing. Thinking about this can help you to make a decision about whether a job could be suitable for you.
Opportunities to Advance
If you’re trying to forge a career and not just looking for a job, you need to know whether there are any opportunities to advance, learn, and take on new responsibilities. It’s not necessarily the main reason you might decide to choose or not choose a job.
Even if there aren’t many opportunities for promotion, it could be a good place to learn and develop before you move on to somewhere else. However, if you would prefer to stay in the same place for longer, you might be looking to advance through the ranks at the same place.
Job Security
Job security is another important factor to consider when you’re assessing a job. Is there anything that could increase the risk of you losing your job within the next few years? It’s worth looking at the industry to see if there are any reasons it might take a downturn.
The company itself could have indications that it might not be in the best position too. There’s no sure way to predict how secure your job might be, but there are some ways you might be able to get a better idea of what your future could look like if you go for the job.
Communication
How a company communicates with you can be a great indicator of whether you should work for them, and this can begin before you ever get in touch with them. Even how they communicate through the job posting or if they get in touch with you can give you an idea of whether they’re the right company for you.
This can be a good measure of how they will treat you if you work for them. Do they convey respect? Are they timely in their responses to you? If they don’t respect your time and effort now, they’re unlikely to do so when you work for them.
The Interview Process
If you get invited for an interview, it gives you an opportunity to get a more in-depth look at the company and the job available to you. You can make judgments based on the interview process and you might have a chance to talk to the people you will be working with.
You can use the interview to understand more about how the company treats its employees, as well as know more about the role and the duties that you would be expected to perform. They will be testing you, but it’s also a chance for you to test them.
Go with Your Gut
Have you had a job offer that you’re just not sure about? Sometimes you have a feeling that you shouldn’t accept the offer, even though you might not be sure why. When this happens, it could be an irrational feeling, but it could also be worth paying attention to. You may not know the exact reason that you feel uneasy, but if you accept the offer, you could later realize that you should have gone with your gut feeling.
Before accepting or even applying for a new job, you should think about a range of different factors that could influence whether the job is right for you.
Next read: Tips for Getting Hired After a Career Break(Opens in a new browser tab)
Rachel is an Austin blogger, educator, mom, wife, young breast cancer survivor writing about health, saving money, and living a happy life in Austin, Texas.
Rachel has written for HuffPost and Hometalk and has been featured on KXAN, Studio 512, Fox 7 Austin, and CBS Austin.