The Good Fish Co - Reel 'Em in or Throw 'Em Back?

 

Hey friends, after a long hiatus, I'm back with a job interview story!  The purpose of this post is to keep myself honest about making a good decision for my next work gig and to show what goes on behind the closed doors of the job search process.

TL&DR: I don't think that The Good Fish Co is Mr. Right but I'm tempted to make them Mr. Right Now.

Quick Recap of My Work Sitch

My previous job was a dream come true until the company got acquired and became a corporate monster.  My current role is basically fine but incredibly boring to the point where I feel like a zombie from 8 to 5 and it's taking a toll.  To the point where I just started therapy.

Commentary on the Job Market

The work that I do is somewhat niche, so I will never have a million offers to chose from.   I'm an accountant who specializes in payroll, and since COVID I also specialize in working from home.  Lots of other people like working from home as well, so that increases the competition for any job that I go after.

When I started my search last year, it was the Great Resignation and employers were coming to me.  Now granted, I never got a single job offer, but I had a decent amount of interviews, and the process helped keep me sane while a couple of things that needed to change with my company worked themselves out.

Right now in the Tech Meltdown Era, job openings are fewer but not zero.  My unscientific opinion is that the response rate from employers is sharply down.  Most of my applications today get no response, which has definitely changed from previous searches when the rejections fell like rain.  I consider every rejection to be a good luck omen.

When I started this round of my job search in February, I got:

• A lot of nothing.  In my previous searches, it's never taken longer than a few weeks to get that first interview and my searches have typically been 1-4 months.
  
• A few rejections.
• Two initial recruiter calls.  One was an obvious bad fit and the recruiter was unprofessional.  The other was a mismatch for money
• Last week I felt a tug on my job search fishing line.  After so long with no action it was a surprise.  I've started reeling it in and it's a pretty good looking fish and it seems to like my bait.  But is it my fish?

(P.S. I have never fished, not once in my life.  I'm not sure where the fish metaphor came from but let's roll with it) 

The Good Fish Co - pros and cons

Let's see how Good Fish fits into my job wish list and how my current job has changed since we last talked.  To date I've had interviews with the recruiter and the supervisor, and next week I have a panel interview with other people in the company.

Job title

The work that I do goes by many different names.  The job title Peon and BigWhoop have exactly the same responsibilities, but BigWhoop gets paid more, so that's the title that I targeted and what I am today.

Now that more employers are posting salaries in job listings, I've seen a wild range of nicely paid Peon jobs and insultingly low paying BigWhoop jobs so I'm more flexible on my job title.

$$$

Good Fish listed a salary range of $30k, with the top number being what I'd like to make for my base salary.  When the recruiter asked about salary in our initial call, I told her, "I really appreciate that you listed the salary range in the job posting.  My current OTE is right at the top of your range".

Right now my base salary is lower than the number that I dreamed up during my initial job transition in 2021 (and that I once got an offer for), but I always get more than 100% of my bonus and I get cash payouts for stock (the company went private which means that we get cash instead of stock), which means that I make Dream Number + $8k annually.

Assuming that Good Fish offered me Dream Number plus bonus plus their very generous perk list (home office allowance, professional development allowance, etc) the total would be Dream Number + $12k annually.  While getting $4k more in my pocket each year isn't much, I'd be getting more of it with each pay check instead of in chunks on the quarterly bonus and annual stock payout.

Shout out to both my current employer and Good Fish for doing a quarterly bonus instead of an annual one==>that makes everything apples to apples and it's the right way to do things.  My previous employer did an annual bonus, and it was a total leash because if you left before the bonus was paid you got nothing.  All of my previous employers before that had a bonus of $0.

Unlimited PTO

No getting around it, Good Fish has an old school PTO policy.  I'm not sure how many days it is or if there are use-it-or-lose-it conditions.  I'd ask for 20 days regardless, so it's not a deal breaker but it is annoying.

Since we last talked, my current employer changed to unlimited PTO - oh excuse me, I mean Flexible PTO.  When I leave the company I'll be paid for the PTO balance that I had on the old school plan, so there's a $5k incentive to leave.

BPTW

That jargon means Best Place to Work, where one of the business objectives is the employee experience.  So far we've been splitting hairs over the difference between the two companies, but here is where Good Fish takes the lead.  The tone that I picked up from the recruiter and the supervisor plus their Glassdoor reviews speaks volumes.  When I talked to them, I got a buzz and a high from the energy, and a longing because I've missed that so much since my previous employer went to crap.

If my current employer needs to balance the budget, they never hesitate to take it out of an employee's hide.  They're not shy with the layoffs and the terminations, and they did salary cuts during COVID.  Raises are few and far between, and they're doing a nickle-and-dime sweep of the perks.  Let me tell you, the switch to unlimited PTO was 100% for cost savings.

Remote Friendly

My job is remote, but the hiring focus switched to hybrid since I joined the company.  I live close enough to an office that technically I'm supposed to go in twice a week, but I never have and I've never been asked to (everyone that I work with is located out of the country).

Good Fish is remote first.

Current Time Zone/40 hour work week

TBD.  I'm Eastern and the supervisor is Pacific, so if we move forward I'll talk to him about what happens when he needs something after 2:00 his time but I'm making dinner and driving kids around.  It would be a major adjustment from my current life where the rest of my team is in another country and ahead of me time zone wise (which is the secret sauce that keeps my work hours reasonable).

Red flag - Good Fish uses the same payroll company that my current company does, and I basically have to be on call on processing days for whenever they get around to doing things.  The supervisor mentioned that they have the same issue with the payroll company, but said they have enough clout to wait until the next day.  Which might be a sign that he's on top of making sure that the team isn't working all hours of the day - TBD.

Company Does Something Cool

Eh...not so much.  It's not less cool than my current employer.  Both are nothing special.

I love the supervisor!!!

This is a make or break one for me, and the answer is maybe. 

The supervisor described his management style "I am not a micro manager.  I get out of your way so that you can do your job.  I just expect you to tell me what I need to know or if you need help before it's too late".

YESSS!!!!!!  I can work with this!!!!!!  My current boss leans a bit toward micro managing, but it's easy to handle her because I'm already doing what I need to be doing.  But if I could just do my job without someone checking in on me every 5 minutes, that would be awesome.

In general I got the impression that the supervisor knows what he's doing and that he's competent.  He is very serious about certifications and continuing education, and he works with the team to make sure that they get quality stuff (as opposed to the dirt cheap/waste of time stuff that I do to keep my certs going).

The only negatives are that he prefers to be in office (possible personality conflict?) AND OMG HE WOULD NOT STOP TALKING.  Our call was 30 minutes and it went for over an hour.  At times I was thinking "shut up dude".  On the plus side, when he asked questions he let me talk, so while he likes the sound of his own voice, he's not a conversation hog.  And we did have stuff to talk about.

I love my coworkers!!!

Unknown, since I won't meet them until my next interview. 

At my current gig, there were some problem people when I started but they're gone and have been replaced by good folk, so it seems that my current employer is getting better at hiring.

Individual contributor role

This is a new item on my wish list.  I've known since my first job at McDonald's that I do not like managing people.  I confirmed this again in my late 20's when I briefly had a management job. 

In December I got a minion and it's one of the things that really tanked my job satisfaction.  I like doing my own work, I don't like doing my work plus being responsible for what someone else is doing.  Just no.  If I'd wanted to have kids I would have had 'em, you know?

One of the perks of the Peon job title is not having to be a boss.

Daily tasks are stuff that I enjoy doing

This is another new one on the list and oops it's where Good Fish starts to smell.  The responsibilities are very similar to what I do now.  There are a few differences that give Good Fish a bit of an edge over what I do now, but these things are inches and not miles.

Other stuff

Good Fish Co appears to have a successful business model and to be profitable at least according to what they told me.  The business is self funded and the owner enjoys being hands on, so he's not looking to sell and doesn't have to get in bed with anyone to keep the lights on.  They seem very stable in a way that I haven't seen in a very long time.  Also they seem to like me?

The position is open because the previous person got an unexpected dream job offer when she wasn't looking.  She's staying part time until the new person starts and she'll do the training/be around if I ever have questions.

My current company is in a rockier position, as you can tell from the layoffs and penny pinching.  If the private equity owners or their masters say jump we say how high.  The plan is for the company to become a raging success in the next few years and then it gets sold.  The question is how much more will they cut back before the raging success part if it happens?  I don't care about the company eventually being sold because I don't plan on being there that long.

Let's Wrap it Up

Advantages of Good Fish - a solidly better company, a bit more $, a bit more but not much more interesting stuff to do, not having to be a boss.  It could be good?

Advantages of staying where I am - it's the devil that I know and it's an easy place to hang out while I'm waiting for Job Charming to come along.  The tech meltdown won't last forever.  Also they have had a lot of good change in the time that I've been there and maybe just maybe they know what they're doing.  It could be interesting to hang around for a bit longer and see how things shake out.

In my job search history I've had a few interviews where my skirt flew up and my toes curled and that's the company that I want to work for.  Good Fish is good, but so far it's not that good.  But given how crappy my current job is making me feel, do I want to sit around and wait for Job Charming?  If my current job gets worse, then I would regret passing up Good Fish.

Current must list:

• The panel interview needs to be excellent.  I need to love all of these people and want to come work with them.
• Follow up conversation with the supervisor to get a second impression.
  
• The salary needs to be Dream Number.  If they come in lower it doesn't make sense to move.
• The time zone/no working outside of a normal 40 hour work week thing needs to be clarified.  I never bring it up early in the process - I listen for clues and then say it outright later on.
  
• Oh by the way they need to be cool that I'm taking 2 one week vacations this summer.  At this point it's premature to tell them unless they ask.  That's for the offer stage.
  

Stay tuned next week when I have my next interview and get more info.

What would you do - wait for Mr. Right or go work for Mr. Right Now?