Getting your player ready...
Dear J.T. & Dale: I am a tenured faculty member at a small college. I have very good teaching evaluations and serve on numerous committees. The college’s salaries have fallen substantially behind those of other similar institutions. I requested a raise but was told that the college needed a competing offer to entertain a raise. I do not want to move, and I am torn about whether it is ethical to search out other positions for the purpose of obtaining a competing offer. Any suggestions on my next move? – Art
DALE: You easily could rationalize your seeking out competing offers just by looking at college football and basketball coaches, those masters of ratcheting up their salaries by making visits to other campuses. But ethics isn’t the lowest common denominator. Instead, let’s answer two questions: Will getting offers that you know you aren’t going to take require you to manipulate people, using them as a means to your end? Will you need to deceive them? Yes, and yes. Two yeses equal one big NO – you can’t justify it, not in Dale’s Little Book of Honorable Behavior.
J.T.: OK, but … What if, Art, you could see yourself actually taking one of those offers? That changes everything. You have every right to demonstrate your value and let your college compete to keep you. Just make sure you mean it; otherwise, there’s the chance you’ll have your bluff called. If you go to your administration with your higher offer, they could say, “Take it,” and gladly find themselves someone they could pay even less.
DALE: As for a next move, here’s another option: Find out who among the faculty has gotten raises and why. I’m guessing they didn’t all have higher offers. Rather, I’d bet many are getting grant money or corporate donations, or media attention, or something else beyond teaching and committee-ing. Your administrators are forced to spend their day on economic realities like revenues and expenses; if you talk in that language, they’ll be more likely to hear you.
Dear J.T. & Dale: I recently met a woman who’d managed a coffee shop for several years, then moved to a job with a bank. After only four months at the bank, she was let go. That was five months ago, and she says that she isn’t in any rush to find a new job, since she can collect unemployment. She said this in a joking tone, but it’s not funny to me. I wonder how many other folks are using unemployment to excuse themselves from finding a job. – Ella
J.T.: I’m sure there is a group of people out there who are abusing the system. What percentage of the 14 million people who are between jobs fall into that category? We can’t be sure. But I can be sure of this: In the past year, I’ve worked with hundreds of professionals who’ve been out of work for a long time, and all of them felt strongly that they were doing everything they could to get a job. However, as we started to dissect their job searches, we discovered they weren’t using the right techniques. Eventually, such job-seekers lose momentum and give up. Perhaps the woman you met falls into that category.
DALE: So, Ella, that woman may be making light of her situation rather than admitting to failure and hopelessness. On the other hand, she might be a layabout who’s misusing the system. Instead of directing your anger toward the unemployed, I invite you to join me in directing it where it belongs: the greedy merchants who were running the financial companies that dragged us into the economic mire.
