Ask Liz Ryan HR: Human Resources for the new millennium
What's Your View on Taking a Job with the Intention of Continuing to Job-Hunt?
Dear friends -- I wrote this analysis for Business Week. Do you agree or disagree? What's your take?
The guiding principle for all working people in today's environment is this: Every job is a consulting job. It doesn't matter whether you've been a full-time W-2 employee thus far, or a contractor, or consultant, or a combination. At this moment, we're all consultants; only the lengths of our assignments vary. Anyone who relies on the security of a position because of its full-time W-2 status needs a reality check.
All these realities apply in the case of Colleen O'Henry, a laid-off copywriter who must sit tight hoping a $75,000 position commensurate with her experience will pan out—or accept a $58,000 grant-writing position right away but quit if she's offered the better job. As a longtime career coach, I vote for the latter option. Why?
The not-for-profit organization in need of a grant-writer may mean well or may have cynical intentions where Colleen or any other grant writer is concerned. How can we know? By cynical intentions, I mean the organization may take the view, "We need someone to write fantastic applications to help us secure five important grants, at which point we won't need him or her any more." Often, it is less expensive to hire an employee at a low hourly wage ($58,000 amounts to less than $30 an hour) than to get an outside consultant to do the same work.
No Promises
Colleen has no guarantee her not-for-profit job will persist for any particular length of time. The same is true for all of us. She's perfectly right (from both the ethical and practical standpoints) to snatch the bird in the hand and take the job she has been offered. There's no implicit promise that she'll remain on board for an extended period—or any promise from her employer of a long-term job.
I assume Colleen will do her best work while she's at the not-for-profit organization. The insurance job may never materialize or may take weeks or months to work its way through the pipeline. Colleen neither deceives nor harms anyone by taking a job while hoping a more appealing one eventually comes through. In a sense, all working people are in the same position—consultants and employees alike. We're working hard for our employers today while keeping an eye trained on the next chapters in our careers.
An employee's obligation is to give his or her best effort every day on the job. An employer's challenge is to give the employee an incentive to come back to work tomorrow.
The not-for-profit is not unaware of Colleen's value on the for-profit market. There's a calculated risk in making any hire, and in the case of the not-for-profit organization, the risk is associated with hiring a person for a job below his or her skill and compensation level. That organization may benefit immensely from Colleen's contribution, even if the relationship is short. It's getting a $75K person for $58K. In the modern workplace, situations like this will be more common. Rather than looking for victims and bad guys, we should remember that, even in a tough economy, water has a way of finding its own level.
The guiding principle for all working people in today's environment is this: Every job is a consulting job. It doesn't matter whether you've been a full-time W-2 employee thus far, or a contractor, or consultant, or a combination. At this moment, we're all consultants; only the lengths of our assignments vary. Anyone who relies on the security of a position because of its full-time W-2 status needs a reality check.
All these realities apply in the case of Colleen O'Henry, a laid-off copywriter who must sit tight hoping a $75,000 position commensurate with her experience will pan out—or accept a $58,000 grant-writing position right away but quit if she's offered the better job. As a longtime career coach, I vote for the latter option. Why?
The not-for-profit organization in need of a grant-writer may mean well or may have cynical intentions where Colleen or any other grant writer is concerned. How can we know? By cynical intentions, I mean the organization may take the view, "We need someone to write fantastic applications to help us secure five important grants, at which point we won't need him or her any more." Often, it is less expensive to hire an employee at a low hourly wage ($58,000 amounts to less than $30 an hour) than to get an outside consultant to do the same work.
No Promises
Colleen has no guarantee her not-for-profit job will persist for any particular length of time. The same is true for all of us. She's perfectly right (from both the ethical and practical standpoints) to snatch the bird in the hand and take the job she has been offered. There's no implicit promise that she'll remain on board for an extended period—or any promise from her employer of a long-term job.
I assume Colleen will do her best work while she's at the not-for-profit organization. The insurance job may never materialize or may take weeks or months to work its way through the pipeline. Colleen neither deceives nor harms anyone by taking a job while hoping a more appealing one eventually comes through. In a sense, all working people are in the same position—consultants and employees alike. We're working hard for our employers today while keeping an eye trained on the next chapters in our careers.
An employee's obligation is to give his or her best effort every day on the job. An employer's challenge is to give the employee an incentive to come back to work tomorrow.
The not-for-profit is not unaware of Colleen's value on the for-profit market. There's a calculated risk in making any hire, and in the case of the not-for-profit organization, the risk is associated with hiring a person for a job below his or her skill and compensation level. That organization may benefit immensely from Colleen's contribution, even if the relationship is short. It's getting a $75K person for $58K. In the modern workplace, situations like this will be more common. Rather than looking for victims and bad guys, we should remember that, even in a tough economy, water has a way of finding its own level.
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