A Guide to Choosing the Right Opportunity

In the past year I’ve met with numerous friends and acquaintances who are in the job hunt (or just figuring life out.) The application process for almost anything typically looks like this:

More often that not, they generally have two opportunities that they are considering. Money, vacation, and benefits are all key things to consider, but rarely are any of those the most important factor. I argue that there are three vastly more important things to consider whether its a job, heading back to school or any other really big decision.

Expertise
Does this opportunity take advantage of the expertise I currently own, or will it teach me the necessary things to acquire the expertise I think I want. If you already own the expertise, that’s one part of the opportunity equation complete, so to speak. If you don’t own the expertise, will this opportunity give you the time and space to learn it?

Community
Does this opportunity get me into the community I want to be a part of? Whether its a company community, local community, or just people who share knowledge, do you want to be a part of it? Will you enjoy the company of the people you will spend every day with? When people ask me how Shopify is, I always say: “I get to go into work and hang out with the smartest people in the world.” Communities embrace you, push you, challenge you, and make you grow.

Leadership
Ask yourself: Do I want to work for the CEO/Founder? By this point, you should have done your research on who this person is. What makes this group of people great? Do they inspire you, or are they just…there?

If I was to look back at the last year, I would say that going into Jet Cooper and eventually Shopify had all of these. Leaders who constantly push you and surround themselves with the best people to push you to do truly great things. I did parts of Product Management in previous job, but wanted to put the pieces together and further expand on my knowledge and grow my expertise. Being a part of the Toronto tech community was as easy as showing up to events, but more than that, I wanted to join the best people. To work with the best pushes you to be the best.

If you want to make sure that the next opportunity is the right one, use these three criteria to make sure you’re not making the wrong move.

• Jordan