How Do You Know If A New Job Is Right For You?

You’ve filled out all of the online applications for a new job, sent over a resume and you’re invited for an interview. The interview goes brilliantly, they’re impressed with your experience and you get along well. A couple of weeks later, a letter lands on the doorstep and you open it. It’s a job offer!

Okay, in today’s world, you’d most likely be receiving your offer in your inbox!

But for some reason, you’re not sure how to feel about it. You know that you should be over the moon but there’s something bothering you. This happens to a lot of people and it’s because they don’t really know if the job is right for them. Even if a job seems perfect on the face of it, there are always things that might bother you.

It’s a tough position to be in, especially if your current job isn’t too bad. It’s not the best job in the world but it’s fine for now, do you really want to risk leaving for a job that might be wrong for you? On the other hand, if you don’t take that risk and accept the new job, you might be missing out on a great opportunity to further your career, so what are you supposed to do?

You need to find out whether that job is right for you or not, which can be tough. There are a lot of different things to consider and you can never be 100 percent sure, but if you think about all of the things on this checklist, you should be able to make a decision.

Salary

First off, you need to look at the salary. If it’s considerably lower than your current salary, this might not be the job for you. In that case, you should ask the new employer if they’re willing to consider a salary increase so it’s in line with your current pay, otherwise, you can’t really accept the job. You never know, they might say yes.

If the salary is the same or even slightly lower, that doesn’t mean you should automatically reject the offer. The role at the company might be something that you’ll enjoy more and there might be better opportunities for progression (we’ll come back to that later).

So, sometimes, it’s worth taking a little pay cut if it means getting a better position. Make sure that you check the benefits as well because, even if you’re getting a smaller salary, you might come out on top if you have better health insurance etc.

It’s also important that you don’t get blinded by a higher salary and just take the job without thinking about any of the other important things, just because you’re getting paid more.  

Work-life balance in your new job

Work-life balance is so important because stress at work can have a huge negative impact on your health and your family relationships. If the new job is going to have you working considerably longer hours and you don’t get as many days off, ask yourself if you’re really prepared to make that sacrifice or not.

Finding out about the work-life balance at a company is tough because it’ not just about hours. On paper, you might be working the same hours but if you’re constantly getting emails all night and you have to take work home with you, that’s a problem.

Luckily, there are some great resources to help you out. Glassdoor is a great review site where employees post information about the companies that they work for. Check out this Ogletree Deakins Jobs review to get an idea of the kinds of information you can find out. It’s always worth checking the new company on here to make sure there aren’t any horror stories on there.

Try to meet other staff members

You spend most of your time with the people that you work with so it’s important that you get along with them once you start your new job. They don’t need to be your best friends but if you don’t have a good working relationship, it can make your job a lot harder than it needs to be.

When you’re at an interview, see if you can meet any of the other staff members while you’re in the building and get a sense of the kind of people that are working there. This will help you to work out whether you’ll fit in with the rest of the team or not.

Progression opportunities

A lot of people change jobs because their current job doesn’t offer them any opportunities to move up the career ladder. If that’s why you’re changing jobs, you need to check out the new company and make sure that you’re not just going to be in the same position again in your next job.

This is a great question to ask at an interview because it shows that you’re driven and goal oriented. If they tend to hire outside of the company instead of promoting within, your move might not necessarily benefit your career.

Once you’ve considered all of these things, you should have a better idea about whether you should take the new job offer or not. Also, don’t forget that job satisfaction and challenge should be on your radar as you don’t want to hate your job because it’s boring and monotonous.

What do you think of these and what would you do if you got a new job? Share your thoughts in the comment section below. Remember to subscribe to the blog to receive exclusive updates and information in your inbox.

*This is a collaborative post.