How should Brett decide which of his two job offers to accept — or whether to reject them both and keep looking? Here’s the test every new job offer must pass — or else you don’t want the job!
Source: Never, Ever Take A Job Unless It Passes This Test
While this article is written to be generic and apply to almost any job, it definitely applies to technical communications jobs. I know, from experience, that sometimes you might only have one job offer, and you question whether you should take it, only because it’s something rather than nothing. But I think some of the author’s big points hit home, which include whether you are going to enjoy doing the tasks expected, learn something, have opportunity to grow, and if you get along with the people you’ve interviewed with. Now, the last one is tricky. I had interviews with people, and then never worked with them, and ended up working with someone else I didn’t get along with as well. And sometimes, all of it will not align. For example, I walked away from some other potentially lucrative opportunities that I was being considered for to take the one that I’m at now. It’s been three months since I was given the job offer and said yes, but I am still having serious connectivity issues to company network systems so that I can do my work. Do I blame the people who hired me? No. They have been honest and transparent that much of the work to set me up is out of their control, and they’ve gone to great lengths to get me set up as much as they can and keep me working. I finally met them the other day, and despite the computer networking issues, I’m glad I took this job. I like the people, the work sounds exciting, and I think there will definitely be room for growth. Doesn’t hurt that I got an hourly pay raise out of it as well.
It’s not easy making choices in today’s job market. The “perfect” job isn’t out there. But, I think that the guidelines listed here in this article are good ones, and they are ones that I had to learn organically from experience.
What do you think? Include your comments below.
–TechCommGeekMom
TechCommGeekMom 
That’s a good article, Danielle. Thanks for sharing it. I love the idea of thinking about each job as a level in a video game. It’s definitely not advice I’d’ve heard when I started in my career, back around 1980. But today it’s dead-on.
A couple of other things stood out for me:
When I started — again, in the Stone Age — a trusted mentor told me never to accept a job or turn down a job based on who the manager is. Managers come and go, he said, but jobs endure. Again, times have certainly changed. I agree with Liz that this is an important consideration.
“What kind of pain will I solve in this job?” That one’s fantastic! I’ll remember it for sure.
Yes, Liz’s big mantra with job searching is “what pain point can I solve?” My answer is usually, “I don’t know what your pain points are, so I can’t tell you!” LOL But she often has good advice and perspective, and this is a good example of that.
I think it’s a great question to ask in the job interview: “What pain points do you have, that you’ll expect me to solve?”