Know your worth: Be a 10x Candidate

Too many professionals sell themselves short because they can't answer one simple question: What financial value do you create? 

Before going in we must know “our own numbers”.

Let’s just understand our salary. Let’s pretend for a moment we aspire to a 100K salary with 10% bonus and 15% pension. Fully loaded for your employer including social security costs and overhead at least 2x.

We will cost 200K / year. 

Sure, professions come with benchmarks. Sure, company’s threshold for project returns differ from industry to industry.

But we are not in this to bump along as average.

So ask yourself the question, what does great look like?

What sort of return does a VC investor look for? 

10X, right?

So, therefore, to make a standout case for your salary demand you need to be showing how you will bring 2m to the bottom line (not the top-line) every year.

A key aspect of understanding our value proposition is pitching ourselves in terms of profit and loss impact, not just capability or responsibility.

Simply put: if we are not part of winning deals, investment, or savings, we will find it difficult to communicate our value. And in turn, our colleagues and future employers will find it difficult to value us. When McKinsey arrive guess who the cross-hairs are going to fall on?

We must peg ourselves to a number that matters to the shareholder. It’s not good enough to say we drove sales. Were they good sales or bad sales?

We need to know how we created value. We need to show that the money left over from the sales we made, the margin, moved the needle, that it put more money in the shareholder's pocket.

Even if you work in Regulatory or Compliance, your job is still to know how your work impacted the bottom line, and have the numbers to prove it.

This is the first and most basic task you must achieve.

It’s not easy. But this is where you will find self-esteem and earn respect from your colleagues. It’s also your best safeguard against becoming the statistical victim of a cost-cutting initiative.

‘Explain your value’ is a concept we hammer home to our candidates. Once you dig into your own numbers, you’ll find bedrock from which to make credible demands of a future employer.

Key Takeaways:

1. You must tie your value to financial impact, profit, savings, or investment, not just describe your responsibilities

2. Everyone, even in back-office or non-revenue roles, needs to understand and articulate how they affect the bottom line

3. Knowing your number gives you a foundation for self-worth, credibility with peers, and leverage with future employers

This concept is explored in more detail in my book, "How Big Tech Broke the Job Search (And What to Do About Yours)" - which you can check out here.