The Job Decision Quadrant: Must, must not, nice to have, don't mind

Not sure what you want from a new role? Struggling to decide whether a job offer you’ve received is really right for you? Fear not! Business mentor Ghilaine Chan is here with some must-read advice, featuring the job decision quadrant. 

I have come across many people who have quite a basic way of identifying if they should accept a job offer or not. Much of it is based around the job description.

The criteria you use for deciding if the job is right for you is quite simple and covers all the bases. It gives you a good template on what questions you need to ask through the process to know if the job is a good fit. 

It is made up of 4 quadrants and will work for all the jobs you have to decide on. The variables may change, but the quadrants remain the same. The order you build this matrix is entirely up to you; I have put them in the order I prefer to work through.

Quadrant 1: What I will not tolerate

For me this is simply what you will not do for any amount of money. These are non-negotiable and will fit very closely with your own values and purpose. This is quite a good exercise to find out what your values are, if you don't already know. These can often be visceral and quite childish...

As an example, there are certain industries I won't work in - they go on this list. I put certain people or personality traits into this list too. I can often do a job I am not that happy or interested in, if I like the person or people I work with or for. There are certain people I will not work for or with for any amount of money. This can be a difficult one to quantify when going through the interview process, but it is your job to uncover these details in the interviews so that you can make the decision. Certain companies, countries, types of work may also go in this list. 

Quadrant 2: What must I have

For every job you do, there are some things you need in order to do the best job you know how. These can be harder to list. Examples may be as simple as the commute time(especially if you have responsibilities), number of days working from home, working hours, development goals, etc. It is a good idea to really focus on these ones. There may be some that you think are unreasonable or you would never get from an employer, but in my experience, if you don't ask, you certainly won't get, and you may be amazed what some employers may do, especially if they’re unable to hit a salary target. This is where you can often negotiate.

Which brings us onto …

Quadrant 3: Nice to have

These are the things that you put on your must have list that you then realised weren't so important. This may mean a commute time, again, working from home, flexible hours, added benefits, possibly even salary expectations. These would be the icing on the cake if you got everything from your first 2 quadrants.

Quadrant 4: Don't mind

These are the items that don't really sit in the ‘will not tolerate’ quadrant, but you are still not keen on. These are the items that, when you have everything you wished for and a couple you didn't, it wouldn't be so bad. Often these are things that you don't care about either way and certainly won't sway you negotiating for a hike in salary; these are the items you negotiate with for the things you must or must not have.

Once you have this complete matrix, you can start identifying jobs or companies that fit all of your requirements. Remember: if you don't know what your requirements are it is even less likely that someone will be able to supply you with them.

Find out more about our guest blogger Ghilaine Chan

Ghilaine is passionate about allowing people to do their best work and delight others

Ghilaine helps people to operate fast growing businesses in a productive and streamlined way, keeping an eye on time and money, whilst increasing motivation and improving customer relationships in a fast paced, changing environment. She brings order to chaos and creates scalable processes around the business, empowering them to delight their customers.

She works with tech based or enabled companies who are looking to disrupt their industries, but know that people are at the centre of their success and helping them manage their teams to: 

• Do their best work and delighting others
• Create some boundaries, but not cages
• Know they are acting for a purpose
• Determine which part they play, that what they receive enables them and what they produce is useful
• Have autonomy over how and when they produce

She has over 15 years' experience in scaling international business functions for technology companies, within their support and consultancy organisations.

Ghilaine is a graduate of London College of Fashion (now part of University of the Arts: London) with a degree in Product Development. She is a Mentor with Microsoft Ventures,UpRising and Outbox Incubator as well as an Approved Business Coach with Growth Accelerator, now part of Business Growth Services. 

Want to know more? Connect with Ghilaine on LinkedIn, follow her on Twitter and visit her website, Ghilaine & Co.