Simplify Your Job Search with P²MR²
If you are going to work 40, 50 or 60 hours per week I think it is really important to be doing it at a place that you like. It has to fit the criteria important to you. After a lot of thought and some soul searching, I identified the five criteria important to me during a pivotal point in my career.
First, a little background. I was fortunate to be an early employee at a startup company that grew rapidly and was sold for a high multiple back in the day. We were venture capital backed and grew our revenue and more importantly, our profitability. After the company’s successful exit, I decided to take some time off to be with my family.
Ultimately, I decided to rejoin the working world. As I navigated the job market, the economic landscape was changing but I was still getting meetings facilitated by my activities on LinkedIn. I guess I am a power user of this self-promoting career technology and when you combine that with a good story, you can generate some interest. So here are the five criteria I used to find my next opportunity. These were designed to assess small companies but can easily be adapted to opportunities with large organizations as well. People, Product, Market, Role, Reason or P²MR² was my formula for success. Here is a description:
1. People – Who are you getting involved with? Are these people you can learn from or teach? I don’t care how long someone has been in business or the level of success attained. I think it is important to be involved with dynamic people who have a thirst for knowledge and experience which is balanced with being humble enough to realize that they don’t know everything.
2. Product – What are the products and/or services the company offers? Do they work? Make sure you see and understand them. There is so much vaporware out there it can be easy to get sucked into a company with a flashy demo but nothing behind the bells and whistles. Talk to customers of the companies you are interested in about their products, services and support.
3. Market – How big is the market for the products and services the company offers? Is it a billion dollar market? Bigger? A niche of $100 million. Markets are often sized by consulting firms and VC or Private Equity firms as they determine where to invest their money. If you are trying to find information on a market size you can Google the questions and search through the results or find another company that is either in the business or a tangential one. Read the earnings reports if the company is publically traded and listen to their earnings calls to glean important information on their markets. Almost as important, is if the market is growing. If the market is not growing fast, or is declining, then you may have trouble being successful unless you have a unique new offering that you can use to disrupt the market and grab share. Ideally it may be a fast growing market that your company is a new entrant into with a disruptive product or service. You then have the opportunity to help your new company become a star in your industry.
4. Role – What will you do for the company? In a small company there can be many roles and titles. Wearing many hats is part of the game but in the end you will be responsible for something that determines your pay and longevity with the company. Know what that is and keep it as a focus even while you deal with several things that may be outside of your line of sight.
5. Reason – Know why the company is in business…this is beyond knowing the products and services and involves the capital structure of the company. Is the company venture capital backed? If so, then there will probably be pressure to grow revenue and profits so the company can be sold to provide a return to the VC firm who funded it. Is it a turnaround situation in a division of a big company? Or is it a mom and pop shop that wants to provide good products and services at a reasonable price and a nice living and dividend to its employees? You have to know why you are performing the work for the company in addition to why you are doing it for you. It is how you “buy into” the mission and vision of the company which is key to you being successful.
Checking all five of these criteria boxes is a tough challenge. I either met or spoke via phone to dozens of companies during my search over a focused 18 month endeavor. It turned out to be a tougher challenge than I had thought. There were only a few companies where I could even check three of the boxes and only one that got all five. I never considered changing my criteria as I knew these were right for me and my skills and desires. I hope these are helpful to those of you looking for your next opportunity and I wish you the best of luck.
My best, Chris
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