First Job
What are the right questions?
A note to my first son on his first job:
Who
More importantly than everything else: who are these people? You will become more like them in time. So work for and with honest, dependable, smart people. You can work out anything with high quality people. You can’t make up for low quality people with all of the other job benefits combined. If you find an immediate boss with a meteoric career trajectory, you can draft in his wake, rising to fill each post he leaves.
Here’s a danger zone: working for or with someone terrible on the theory that they’re just screwing over someone else but that you are different and special. Redemption is almost exclusively a religious concept. In reality, people are highly correlated with their prior behavior. Liars lie. Cheaters cheat. Never place a bet on a character turnaround. They are far too rare to gamble on.
What
Pick something that you turn to when no one is looking because of insatiable curiosity. Keep at it as long as your learning curve is steep. Stanford Business School charges over a quarter of a million dollars for two years. Work on a job where you’re learning more than that every 24 months. When you’ve figured it out, move on up to a new challenge.
Young people should risk their reputations less but everything else more. Win. Or lose honorably with a funny story to tell interviewers in a few years. But now is the time to go for it. Thanks to my friend Doug for this addition: Bet on yourself. Take risks. Your upside / downside is skewed in favor of the young. You don’t have a lot to lose. You have decades to leverage what you learn.
When
In your 20s, be willing to do anything (legal/ethical). Get paid to learn and work, hard if necessary. 30s: get paid to lead – oversee the people doing what you did. 40s: capital/invest/syndicate/grow. 50s and beyond – get paid for wisdom: consult, take on board roles, exploit the value of experience. Young pilots have better reflexes in a hurricane; old pilots just fly around them.
Where
Live a life of adventure. The best time to take advantage of mobility is before you have a wife, kids, and mortgage. Stay asset light – wait on pets or even house plants. You can tell the world what you want to do, when you want to do it, or where you want to do it but not all three. If you want the best opportunities, be willing to go to them even if they are in Alaska, Mexico, or Guyana.
Why
I’ve never asked potential employers or employers a single question about “benefits” etc. which I’ve always thought was an utter absurdity. I’ve looked at ranches that cost mid-eight figures and advertise the brand of washing machine. Never base an eight figure decision on a three figure factor. Just… get your own washing machine. Or pay your own favorite doctor. Don’t be petty.
Financially – most of what you should do is be valuable and some of that value will accrue back to you. Make your employer $100 million and expect something like 10% of that back each year. If they’re generous: more. If they’re cheap: less. But the big thing is to add a lot. If you add $100k of value, you won’t and shouldn’t get paid a lot. There’s no way for generosity or a contract to counteract it if you are not worth much.
In addition to “be valuable” there are a few things you can do. Start in a place with a supply/demand imbalance. Smart young people are drawn to what they perceive as successful career tracks but they can be behind the economy’s needs. Today, there is a shortage of great mining and drilling engineers. It would be a great place to start. Once you are on the inside of an industry, you’ll learn more about the best roles.
I have not studied negotiations and I don’t love bluffing, but can offer how I handled them. I had two completely distinct tracts. The first was what I wanted to do (based on the above criteria especially admiring the people). The second was a purely mercenary look at what the market would maximally pay me. I’d market the second offer to the first employer to get the best job at the best pay.
Ultimately a job is to make money. But the ratio of expanding the pie to worrying about how it is sliced should be roughly 364 days of the first and one day of the second each year. A good hire can make a difference of orders of magnitude; precision around comp is a relatively meaningless distraction. If you are an indispensable money maker, then everything else takes care of itself. If you aren’t, then focus on becoming one.
Caveat
The world is changing fast; I only know what worked for me.
Conclusion
You don’t need to perfect this. It is easier to get a better job when you have a job. Do something. Keep your eyes open for something better.
TL; DR
Get a job.