Signals You Should Turn Down the Job #1 | JobSearchTV.com

Hi, I'm Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. I'm a career and leadership coach, a former recruiter, and I help people be effective in the workplace. Now, you know, job offers are one of those pressure points in life. You know, you want to get to work somewhere else, you've decided you want to leave, but you're not quite sure. Is this the right place for me? So I'm starting a series about tip offs about when you should turn down the offer.

And the first one, particularly if you're at a middle level, professionally, you're not a beginner, you're a more experienced individual, you're not a director, but you're at that manager level or a senior lead in some role. And the tip off here is when they talk about you wearing many hats.

Now, for a beginner, for a junior, wearing many hats is one of the prices of admission. We're going to do a lot of stuff. But as you become more experienced, wearing many hats can translate into "we're understaffed, so you got to do a bunch of stuff." It's kind of like the administrative assistant, who also couples their work with doing human resources for the firm, and accounting for the firm. I don't care what size organization you're around, when they're talking with you about doing things beyond the scope of what you would expect, as long as it's not a learning opportunity (And they may couch it that way. But you have to be clear about what's a learning opportunity for you and how it's gonna serve you).

This is one of the signals that we're about to overwork you. And they're about to pull you in lots of different directions that are going to overwhelm you with time. You know where you want to take your career. If they're talking with you about wearing multiple hats within the organization, they're going to work here to the bone. And you can confirm that in a couple of different ways.

Number one is "What happened to my predecessor?" You don't necessarily ask the manager because the manager is gonna say, "Oh, they went to a better opportunity with another firm. They got recruited out." Talk to the staff, and you start noticing their behavior when you ask, "So there was someone in this role before. What was it like for them? Why did they wind up leaving?" You ask staff about that; you don't ask your future boss, because, this may come as a surprise to you, they don't tell the truth. Okay?

So when you hear about many hats, particularly if you're a mid level professionally, head for the hills. Hope you found this helpful. I'm Jeff Altman, visit my website, Yhe Big GameHunter.us. There's a lot more there that you can watch, listen to or read that will help you. Hope you have a terrific day and be great. Take care.