Deciding to Negotiate

Maybe this sounds familiar: It’s the hottest job market in recent memory and your company is growing. Since unemployment is at 50-year lows, new members to your team are being brought in at a premium in order to attract top-level talent. Your 2-4% annual raise is being outpaced by the market leaving proven contributors who have already been in the trenches to feel alienated, underpaid and underappreciated. After thinking about the salary for weeks or months, it’s time to ask for a raise. So now what?

Business is going well, and you and your team have more work than you can handle - or maybe a key member of your team received an offer they can’t refuse, and they just put in their notice that they are moving on. Either way, you’re looking to hire a full-time employee in the hottest candidate market in the past 60 years. A little background on today’s current market:

Preface

As a manager and team leader, you’ve been very successful in your career and you know what has worked for you. In a given situation, you’ve seen the scenario play out two-dozen times and you know that your way works to approach a given situation. You are managing a group of Millennials and Gen Z who are approaching this problem for the first time and surprise, surprise - you aren’t seeing eye to eye with them. Maybe your way has been disrupted by new thinking or new technology. Maybe they don’t have the same experience that you do, and they simply cannot see why your way is the best or why it will work. In any event, for the team to execute effectively, you all need to be on the same page, but how do you get there?

Job hunting is not an exact science, rather it’s a process of steps that will allow you to increase your chances of finding the opportunity that you’re looking for. Those who are the most successful in finding what they are looking for all have one trait in common, persistence.

For a job seeker, one of the most difficult things to manage and discuss are gaps in a resume. The gaps we are discussing refer to six-plus months of extended periods of time without employment. In the current job market when a candidate’s resume demonstrates these extended periods between jobs, often prospective employers and recruiters will simply pass over the resume.

For most people one of the most difficult things to do is talk about themselves. How do I express my achievements? What work experience is relevant? How do I tailor my resume to a specific job? Here are several best practices: