Use this tool to help you evaluate a job offer.
The Job Wheel
I created the Job Wheel as a simple tool to help you assess a job offer. When used with the Identity Wheel, it allows you to evaluate a job opportunity or offer in the context of what's important to you. Without it, many biases can impact your decision-making, which you could later regret.
The Wheel considers a job in seven dimensions and allows you to evaluate all opportunities and offers using your existing and ideal roles as evaluation guides. It's not perfect, but it's effective.
Once you start your job hunt, you will use this wheel to evaluate jobs and determine whether they are right for you.
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What's in the Job Wheel?
The Job Wheel has seven segments:
Long-Term Objectives
How does this job help you meet your long-term objectives? If you want to set up a business offering landscape gardening, is being a reporting analyst helping you? It's not as obvious an answer as you might think, as good working conditions such as hybrid working may give you time back in your day to develop a side gig, leading to your objective.
Salary
How well does this job meet your salary needs? Remember when thinking about this that salary needs differ at different stages of life. As a Secondhalfer, your salary needs may not be as high, and you'd rather trade off extra holidays, for example. However, keep this in mind if your salary needs are high.
Benefits
For many people, benefits are as important as salary.
Benefits may include holidays, pensions, private health care, training allowances, flexible working, work-from-home and the ability to commute or leave on time. Consider this carefully — would you prefer a pay rise or a pay cut but a guaranteed pension? Flexible working or additional holiday?
Identity Wheel
Returning to your Identity Wheel, how well does the job help you manage the other parts of your life? A high salary and great benefits may mean a lot less if you're away four nights a week and lose your family life, for example. Or, you may be willing to trade that to be able to afford a house in the area you want to live in when you retire. The only right answer is the one you consciously select. If this job helps you achieve your life goals, score highly. If it gets in the way, score low.
Job Satisfaction
You won't get a second chance to have a career, so you need to make the most of the one you have. How much job satisfaction can you squeeze from the job?
Options
Wise people never narrow down options before they have to. What does the job offer in terms of stepping stones to another one? Are you backed into a blind alley, or is there a clear path to promotion, another role in the same company, or your dream job? Does the new role give you the option to specialize further, or does it provide an opportunity to become more of a generalist? Both are OK, but only if they are your choice.
Job Security
Jumping from one insecure role to another may be your only option, but if you had to choose between pay and security, which would you sacrifice a little of?
Completing the Wheel
Initially, you should complete the Job Wheel twice.
First Run
In your first run, consider your ideal job. You may know what it is or may not, but you know what it feels like. As you know, there are seven categories, and each can score a maximum of four, so you have a maximum score of 28. To ensure you make choices, you can only allocate 20 points across the Wheel in total in this run.
Score as follows:
This is of little importance to me.
This is important to me.
This is fundamental.
This is a red line for me — I would not accept a job that didn't meet my needs in this area.
Go ahead and score your ideal job using your 20 points. What are you willing to compromise on, and what do you not? Most importantly, where are your red lines?
Second Run
Score your current job next, using your whole 28 points. How does it compare to the ideal?
You may find you're already in a role where you meet or exceed your ideals. It will be heartbreaking if you're leaving it through redundancy, but you at least have something to aim for.
Alternatively, you may find that your current role comes up short in at least one area, giving you room to improve in your next role.
You may find you're glad to be leaving!
Keep both copies accessible, as you will refer to them often during your job-hunting process.
Please let me know if you use the Job Wheel and how you would improve it here.
Last updated: July 2024