Getting Paid to Love Your Job - Culture and Compensation

As you look around at potential career moves and viable companies to work for, optimal compensation and benefits are probably at the top of your list and they are important not only to your own personal financial matters but they directly affect your perceived value as an employee.

Your next career move should involve an increase in compensation, though this is sometimes difficult to attain. Begin by researching pay grades within the industry and comparable salaries in your particular region and desired title. This will give you a direction and a realistic goal. Many companies, while they may not be able to offer a significant salary increase, can offer better stock options, incentives, benefits and financial rewards for accomplishments.

The next step comes in actually learning what compensation and benefits options there are within a particular company and specific positions. The best resource for this, if it isn’t publicly available, is to ask your recruiter. You can begin by asking a simple question like; Which companies pay the best or offer the best benefits packages?

This information not only helps you eliminate possible companies from your job seeking radar, it will help you once you begin the interviewing and hopefully negotiating process. You know what companies are paying for similar positions in your location and you know what you’re worth. Take that knowledge and make it an integral part of your next career move!

Cultural Fit.

The example of the company that has the Friday Happy Hour in the policies and procedures section or in the cultural fit. Actually, I think they belong in both because they both speak to a company’s personality and how it may or may not mesh with your own personality.

I was setting up an interview the other day with the owner of a flooring company and he was described to me as an “old school” kind of person. The person said this like it was a bad thing. I guess it might be for certain personalities but for others it can be a perfect fit.

Judgments aren’t made, personalities whether they are individual or corporate are just that, they’re personalities and the important thing to remember when you’re searching for your next career move is to make sure that your professional personality and the personality of your co-workers, supervisors, and subordinates is generally in sync with your own.

A very technically savvy, fast paced, go getter might not be the optimal fit for an ‘old school’ steady as she goes type company and vice versa. It not only affects your happiness on the job, but it will affect your performance both in the long and short run.

Remember beyond compensation, you are looking for a company with stability, a communication style that meshes with your own, opportunity for growth, a compatible organization and structure, as well as processes and procedures within that you can be effective utilizing.

Finding the optimal company or company’s to target for your next career move makes your goal all that much easier to achieve. Incorporate the help of an executive recruiter and you’re all but sitting in your new office chair!