7 tips to choose the best job from multiple offers

Your job hunt has paid off and you’ve received not one, but two or more offers of employment. Congratulations! And…yikes. How do you decide which job to take when you have multiple tempting offers on the table, with good salaries and compensation?

Making such an important choice can be difficult. To help make a decision, follow these seven tips:

1. Write down your goals and priorities. Take time to put into writing your personal priorities as well as your career and earnings goals for the next one to five years. Seeing your goals will help you keep perspective on what characteristics you should look for in your next position. Maybe your current focus is on learning specific new skills, hitting an earnings milestone, working for a specific type of company or accomplishing better work-life balance. Once you determine what you want your life and career to look like 12 months from now—and five years from now—your decision may become clearer.
2. Do research on companies who made the offers. To help you choose which company might be a better fit for you, read up on company reviews on Glassdoor. The reviews offer first hand perspective from employees as to what’s working well at the company (pros), what could be improved (cons) as well as insights into areas employees feel that the senior management team should work on. In addition, you can get snapshot ratings reports into how satisfied employees are with the company overall as well as important workplace factors like compensation and benefits, career opportunities, work/life balance and more.
3. Make sure the salary and compensation is fair. Now that you have a better feel for which company might be the best fit for you, do additional research to find out if the salary offers you received are fair. Use Glassdoor to make sure you know exactly what others in your role, in your city, and if possible, even at the companies who made the offers make. Plus evaluate what competitors would pay as well. This will be a big part of your research to determine which offer is most competitive and relevant to your specific needs.
4. Look beyond salary. While your pay is important it’s not the only factor that may matter to you. For example, evaluate the differences in health insurance that may be important to you or your family. Also consider any perks each company offers and if they can help offset costs that you normally may pay out of your paycheck. For example, some companies offer fitness center memberships or discounts, childcare subsidies, lunches, professional training, flexible work schedules and the opportunity to telecommute. When comparing job offers, make sure you carefully consider the entire compensation,
   benefits and perks packages to make proper comparisons, and assess if they align with your own goals and priorities.
5. Consider what the job will be once the honeymoon phase passes. The position you are evaluating today can shift and evolve at various companies. So it’s important to feel as confident as possible that you will enjoy the job and company today, in several months and even years later. Also be sure to ask and understand how each employer sees the job changing over time so that you can research the compensation trajectory. For example, as you gather insights into the role, ask what job titles could come your way as you climb the corporate ladder. With that information on hand, you can again use sites like Glassdoor to research how salary and other compensation components can vary for each specific job title at that company. While compensation could be relatively equal today, consider where it could be after one or two promotions.
6. Think about the path for career opportunity. In other words, what type of work would you like to do in five or 10 years? As you evaluate job offers, think through each job and company. Which has the greatest potential to move your career in the direction you want to see it going, and will help you build up the skills and experience necessary? Equally important, think carefully about whether each position offers room for advancement and whether moving up through the ranks is encouraged and expected. Is mentoring and coaching a part of the company culture? If your ideal “next step” is not available at the company, consider whether the experience you gain in this position could help you move into a subsequent position at another firm, or whether the firm’s leadership may allow you to evolve and develop your own next step.
7. Get a second opinion. Accepting a new job can be stressful even if you’re not choosing between two or more good offers. Rather than trying to weigh all the pros and cons on your own, talk with someone you trust who knows you and understands your goals. That could be your spouse, parent, mentor or other trusted person. Talking with someone about your decision doesn’t mean you have to follow his or her advice, but it can broaden your outlook to discuss all the angles.

Lastly, be careful not to burn a bridge when you decide which offer to decline. Even though you may be accepting a job at a different company at the moment, you’re likely to enter the job market again or perhaps work together in some capacity in the future. How you manage your job search experience and work with hiring managers or recruiters during that process can be highly valuable as you just never know when those relationships you’re building now could pay off down the road.

Source: techgig.com