It would be fair to say your major goal at this point in your life is to create options: a number of opportunities in the employment sector from which you can choose a particular one as the best possible situation for you. This may be one of the more important and difficult decisions you will ever make, and to jump at the first option offered to you could be a mistake.

Most people on the housing market look at a number of homes or apartments before they choose the one they want to buy or lease. They know all they can about the structure, price, tax rate, neighborhood, appreciation potential and school district before they make a commitment. Once they have signed on the dotted line they know there is little chance of turning back without severe financial consequences. While you might not immediately lose a good deal of money if you make the wrong career position decision, or take an offer where there are unanswered questions, the effect is the same as if you were buying a home with poor prior research: wasted time, money and effort. Just as there are necessary improvements in the house you buy even after careful consideration, so are there facts you did not know or could not know about which will appear only after you have accepted a position. But with a certain amount of care, these factors will be minor, and will not affect the "livability" of the job.

I have chosen the parallel between buying a house (or signing an apartment lease--you are In your 20's, right?) and accepting a career position because there are distinct similarities. The choice in either case has emotional overtones and long-term commitment. Once you have found the house/apartment or position you want, there is the strong temptation to own it now, before someone else sees the positives the way you see them and beats you to the punch. And just as easily, one could be influenced by the temptation to continue looking, in hopes the next house or the next position will be just a little better than the one you are looking at now. And the search goes on, and on, and on.

Either extreme reaction, grabbing the position or looking indefinitely, can be self-defeating and result in an unhappy situation. There is no "perfect position" any more than there is a "perfect house." You must resist either extreme temptation and make a good decision in a reasonable amount of time. The smart method is to investigate a number of positions and, considering your individual time restrictions, isolate those which best fit your needs and decide from among those options. What is important is you decide for yourself. It is your decision, and only yours. You will have to live with it long after anyone who has given you advice has forgotten about it and you.

Sounds neat and simple, doesn't it? But how do you go about interviewing all these companies at once? Don't they expect you to give them an answer? Read on...

Consider the word "offer." It carries with it a favorable connotation. An offer can be accepted or rejected, and it definitely leaves room for negotiation after it has been considered. If you approach an organization saying "I want to go to work for your company," you are committing yourself with only the barest of facts in your knowledge pool, and you may find the job has holes in the roof and termites in the cellar. There is an appropriate time and place to make a commitment, but that time is certainly not in the first stages of exposure to the company or position.

The word "offer" has less of a commitment. If you go to an organization and tell them you are interested in an offer, you are saying you wish to know the facts - more about the company, more about the job, and more about the other important details. Once you have all the information, you make your decision. Some candidates have difficulties accepting this as a way of operating, but let me assure you the companies you talk with will have a similar attitude: what have you got to offer us in terms of education, leadership and ability? Then they will make up their minds about whether to give you an invitation to join or a rejection letter.

The proper time to evaluate a position is when you have all the facts about it. It is when you have an offer, not when a friend who has interviewed with the same company tells you it isn't any good. This is a very personal decision, and what excites one person may easily leave another cold.

You are entering the job market with a number of prejudices about different kinds of jobs, about what you want in a position, and about what kind of company you want to work for. It is natural to have these kinds of pre-conceptions. It is also natural for people to change their ideals when they find they are faced with a group of opportunities which only has remote resemblance to what they had in mind originally– sort of like the couple who settles for a two-bedroom cottage rather than the mansion on a hill they pictured as an ideal. Ideals are fine, but you must eventually come home to what is real. Make your decision on a particular position only when you have an offer to go to work, not in the first interview, or after you have read the promotional literature. If you reject a situation because it is not within the boundaries of your ideal, you might be looking back at the passed opportunity with different feelings when you find your real offers are not anywhere near what you expected. It is almost impossible to go back and open closed doors.

Your objective at this point is to get offers. You should make it a policy to talk with any potential employers who will talk to you, whether the situation is initially attractive to you or not. Stop worrying about wasting their time! Interviewing lots of people is part of the recruiting process. If a recruiter were to hire everyone who was given an offer, the company would be overflowing with people in a very short time.

To be sure you have an offer, you must be able to apply all these points of definition to your situation:

•         what you will be doing

•         location where you will be doing it, and what expenses will be paid to move you there

•         when you will start doing it

•         how much in salary and benefits you will be earning initially, and

•         who you will report to

With the possible, but never recommended, exception of the last point, you cannot make a decision (and do not have an offer!) unless all these points are covered. Additionally, and not necessarily minor, considerations (such as who pays for the incidental relocation costs) should be cleared up at the time the formal offer is presented or shortly thereafter, as you consider the whole picture and need to focus on the details.

Other points: you do not have an offer until you have one formally. That means when a representative of the company specifically asks you to go to work and can answer all the definition points listed above. Someone saying they think they will be making an offer this Thursday, an employment counselor assuring you will receive an offer, or a recruiter saying the hiring manager will be making an offer soon are all good examples of not having an offer. Unfortunately, things do not always work out the way people expect. If you take their word as truth and turn down or turn off other opportunities, you could easily be starting your entire search all over again if something unexpected happens. (hiring freeze, internal promotion, better candidate, hiring manager gets terminated or promoted)