A Personal Case Study in Career Development – Part 4

Developing Job Offers

After putting my Haldane training to work for 12 months, I managed to develop three solid job offers.
One was for a tenure track faculty position at Temple University, another was to become the Assistant Dean of the Ambler Campus of Temple University, and the third was for a tenure-track assistant professor of physics position at Villanova University, my undergraduate alma mater.

When I said three solid job offers, I meant: 1) that all three employers had publicly announced an open position; 2) that I had applied in writing to be a candidate for each position; 3) that each employer was still interested in me as a candidate after I had been interviewed by all the key individuals involved in the search process (which typically involved multiple visits); and 4) that I was still interested in the position after the visits, having learned much more about the pros and cons that each of the positions offered.

All that remained was what Bernard Haldane called “The Final Hiring Decision.”   

The Final Hiring Decision

Although the word “final” has an abrupt quality to it, the term “hiring decision” is more a process than a proclamation.  As processes go, hiring decisions not only occur over time, they can often be drawn out over extended periods of time—as long as both parties remain very interested in concluding a deal.

My Haldane counselor described the process to me as a “ritual dance,” a delightful human collaboration between two interested parties that exhibits all the elements of a ceremony with customary procedures. 

And like a courtship ritual, it is not so much a decision as a very courteous negotiation!

The type of negotiation most likely to extend for a long period of time would be ones in which the position and the candidate were seen by both the employer and the employee as a great match.  

This reminds us that both employers and employees bring both perceived value as well as personal goals to the negotiating table.  And by this point in the ritual dance, each party is well aware of the value which the other would bring to the transaction they seek—provided only that the price is not too high.

While the value that each party brings will be well known to the other, this is typically not true when it comes to the question of their personal goals.  In fact, the greatest challenge to a successful negotiation will be first understanding and then reconciling any conflicting goals which the two parties may have.

For that reason, the negotiation process represents a critical opportunity for each party to achieve its own personal goals, while not incurring too steep a price in meeting the personal goals of the other—always keeping in mind the perceived value that the other party would bring to a successful transaction. 

But as Stephen R. Covey taught in Habit 4: Think Win-Win, of his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, there is no guarantee that each party will find the transaction to be a win for them, once they have seen the price that meeting the other party’s goals—or not achieving all of their own goals—would represent.

The main reason for the delay in concluding a negotiation arises from the number of serious issues that need to be resolved and agreed to by both parties before any hiring decision can be made final.  These include the precise nature of the job, the responsibilities of the position, the possibilities for growth, and such sensitive matters of starting salary, benefits, pension, vacation, attendance at conferences, etc.  

And from the prospective employee’s point of view, this is where a decision criterion becomes essential.  You may recall that my rudimentary decision criterion worked as follows.

A Rudimentary Decision Criterion

I was always looking for opportunities that changes in the external environment might give me.  And when an opportunity emerged—providing a fork in life’s road—I chose the path more likely to help make my dream a reality.  And if no difference was seen, I chose whichever one seemed like more fun. 

 Staff Positions vs. Line Positions

 As I looked at the two job offers that remained after I had turned down the faculty offer from Temple University, I realized that one was a staff position and the other was a line position.  The Assistant Dean of the Ambler Campus position offered a starting salary 20% higher than the faculty position at either Temple or Villanova, but as I had learned earlier with help from my Haldane counselor, university presidents came almost exclusively from the ranks of the faculty rather than the staff.

 
That made my decision easier.  I declined the staff position and chose the faculty position at Villanova.