{"id":22,"date":"2022-10-13T21:15:17","date_gmt":"2022-10-13T21:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jasminjohal\/?p=22"},"modified":"2022-10-13T21:15:17","modified_gmt":"2022-10-13T21:15:17","slug":"framework-for-choosing-a-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jasminjohal\/2022\/10\/13\/framework-for-choosing-a-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Framework for choosing a job"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you read my post about my experience at GHC ’22<\/a>, you’ll know I was fortunate to walk away from GHC with four job offers. While I was grateful and ecstatic to have that many offers, I had a very challenging decision to make. This was my first role as a software engineer in a hopefully long, fruitful career. I knew that my first role was important for setting up a solid foundation in software engineering. I’m a notoriously indecisive person but knowing I was at a crossroads in my life and that my decision would affect the trajectory of the rest of my career heightened my anxiety and indecisiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision was challenging because there was no offer that I could immediately write off. I discontinued any interview process that was an obvious “no” for me so all offers were solid contenders. There wasn’t an offer that immediately stood out to me either; each had its advantages and disadvantages. I endlessly vacillated between these advantages and disadvantages in my head. This proved to be a futile exercise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I looked up more concrete, objective ways to decide between job offers and I stumbled upon this article: https:\/\/hbr.org\/2017\/04\/a-scorecard-to-help-you-compare-two-jobs<\/a>. The author explained the scoreboard she created to “help [her] clients take an objective look at decidedly subjective considerations.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"W170417_RIMM_CAREERDECISIONv2\"
Source: https:\/\/hbr.org\/2017\/04\/a-scorecard-to-help-you-compare-two-jobs<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The author outlines all the factors that are important to her in making a decision and then she weighs how important that factor is by giving it an “importance weight” rating from 1 to 5, where 1 indicates low importance and 5 indicates high importance. Then, she creates a column for each offer she is considering. For each offer, she assesses how highly the offer scores on each factor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, suppose one of your factors is salary and this is a very important factor to you, so you rate it a 5. If one company is offering you a salary lower than the market rate, you might rate the salary a 2. Since 5 x 2 = 10, that offer’s score for that factor is 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After scoring each offer on each factor, you end up with an objective, numerical assessment of each offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
My implementation of the scoreboard to compare the four offers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When I completed the exercise of mapping out the offers and how they fared by factor, the results were surprising. Prior to using this framework, I felt that Offer 1 and Offer 2 were neck and neck. When I completed the scoreboard, it became crystal clear to me that Offer 2 was the superior offer. The score difference was stark. Offer 3 was also the offer that I was considering the least, but I was surprised that it was so close to Offer 1. I was leaning toward Offer 4 the most so it was great to see the data support my inclination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The objectivity makes you feel more confident in your decision. Without this framework, I would have likely started my position at Company 4 and endlessly wondered, “what if?” What if I had chosen Offer 2 instead? Maybe Offer 1 was the best choice after all…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m less likely to fall victim to the “grass is greener” syndrome because I know that I made the best decision for myself given the information I had. Unfortunately, I can’t peer into the future so it’s impossible to assess which offer is the “perfect” option. But I recall feeling a sense of relief when I calculated the sums and identified a winner. There is no point in torturing myself and continuing to ponder the decision. It’s hard to argue with the numbers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you read my post about my experience at GHC ’22, you’ll know I was fortunate to walk away from GHC with four job offers. While I was grateful and ecstatic to have that many offers, I had a very challenging decision to make. This was my first role as a software engineer in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12836,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jasminjohal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jasminjohal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jasminjohal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jasminjohal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12836"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jasminjohal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jasminjohal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jasminjohal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions\/26"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jasminjohal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jasminjohal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jasminjohal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}