Tag Archives: career

Career Advice 💡Focusing the numbers that do not add up 🧮

An on-campus recruiter came to your school and presented a slide deck showing some detailed metrics of the company.

You saw the revenues, profits, growth rates, and many other important financial metrics. Of course, such information is important for all prospective employees while they are trying to make a sound decision.

Then, you saw the slide, which was about the growth of the company in terms of headcount. The company had a cumulative annual growth rate of 25% for the last decade with respect to its net headcount growth.

What can you do to check whether this number is true?

You checked the company’s total headcount 10 years ago and found out that there were 500,000 employees working at the company at that time.

So, currently there should have been 3,725,290 employees now working at the company, which is more than the total population of your country!

If this trend were to continue for the next 44 years (which is of course very unlikely), almost every living human on earth would be working at this company.

This is an exaggerated story but I have witnessed similar stories in such company presentations.

TL;DR
Being on the lookout of such illogical trickery regarding numbers will serve you well in your career.
In this article, I will expand on the tactics used by some of the ‘prominent’ companies to lure you into their companies and what you need to do to prevent this from happening to you. They might be more desperate than you think. I also recommend a few books that unveil ‘the glamor’ of these companies and reveal the façade.

Questions of self-assessment concerning your career 👔

Questions of self-assessment concerning your career 👔

Why are you working for your current company?

Are you happy?

Where do you think you are in your career life cycle?

How long is your career life cycle and how do you want your career to end if it is ever to end?

Could you write 3 tangible and 3 intangible benefits of working in your current job?

Could there be any other career paths on which you may be more successful and happier?

What competencies have you developed so far and what competencies do you need to develop further?

In this article, I will explain why these questions are important and what they will reveal about you and your career so that you plan your next career step more wisely and proactively.

Career advice on detecting ‘probably sincere’ allies, foes pretending to be friends but always ready to stab you in the back, and outright frauds

In your career, you will come across many sycophants, impostors, virtue and status signalers, and well-connected and well-protected cronies enjoying their sinecure.
Do not get upset; this is a game and you definitely should not be like them.
You should just learn how to detect such people so that your career will not be hampered by them.

Earning your living in a foreign soil is commendable 💰 However, many calculate the net value of their foreign-earned income wrong

Earning your living in a foreign soil is commendable💰

However, many calculate the net value of their foreign-earned income wrong ⬇️

The salary you will earn in a foreign country denominated in that country’s currency will be depleted by the expenses in that same currency.

Earning Swiss francs in Turkey is different from earning Swiss francs in Switzerland.

Just saying as someone who has worked and lived in 3 different continents and 5 different countries 😉

❗ Remote work dampens such effects to some extent for certain jobs.

On Career Plans and Perfecting Early-stage Career Strategies

‘On Career Plans
All your past experiences and educational credentials served you well and you joined your target firm.
I exclude the situations where pedigree, legacy status, and/or connections trump objective and merit-based qualifications.
What is next now?
Many people throw their career plans, strategy, or tactics out of the window just after landing on a job.
Many think they are set for life although the game has just started.
Starting the game without an A-plan let alone contingency plans will make you suffer a lot.
So, after joining the firm, you should have a solid, but of course evolving, strategy that is better than what you had before joining it.
Do not be rudderless.’

Story of Paola: Things to consider after getting a new job offer

Paola has many abilities. She is smart, hard-working, ethical, and amiable. She graduated from an estimable institution and has been working at a decent company that puts her skills to test every day. Recruiters have been contacting Paola for some time and after completing numerous interviews with different companies, she is now contemplating accepting an offer from a top global company. The company she is planning to join is ranked higher compared to her current company. Her total compensation in cash will increase by 70%. Even if she needs to relocate, the company will reimburse her for these expenses and offered her a hefty signing bonus. She will not receive any RSU or RSA but that is OK for her because her current compensation plan does not include such stock compensation schemes. On the cusp of accepting the offer, Paola actually needs to research more. What are the many other aspects she needs to know?
Hint: Even all the information I shared above, i.e. things she thinks that she knows certainly, may turn out to be bad for her. For example, as she dug more, she might find out that her hourly rate would decrease, compared to that in her previous company, despite the 70% increase in absolute salary (Some people are still OK with that considering that they do not have any side hustles or family commitments or they want to earn and save more money regardless of how many hours they work).
What else? There are many other things to consider. To be continued…

On disposable income being less and less meaningful 🪙

Disposable income as a measure of one’s earning power loses its meaning given the rampant inflation and new taxation schemes.

One observation is that there has been a tendency of wages converging to one another. Tenured employees are more likely to take the brunt of this convergence, feeling more insecure.

Wage earners who are identical in their hourly rates and salaries may differ greatly in their real purchasing power; nonetheless, many are sleepwalking.

Corporate salarymen are in distress. Furthermore, this seems to be only the beginning.