Which job offer really pays more?
The higher salary is not automatically the better offer. This template uses the method taught in decision courses as the reliable alternative to a pros-and-cons list: price every dimension where an offer is not the best, subtract, and compare what is left.
Work Intermediate Addressing Tradeoffs Pro engine
After you install, this is the model to open.
Two Job Offers: Price the Tradeoffs
- In your spreadsheet, click the Sortia icon in the strip of icons down the right-hand edge. No strip? Click the arrow at the bottom-right to open it. You can also use Extensions, then Sortia, then Open Sortia.
- Click Start from a template and put that name in the search box.
- Pick the card with that name and click Load this template. It arrives on a new tab with real numbers already in it.
This one runs on a Pro engine, and every free install includes five full-quality runs on your own numbers, shared across all five Pro engines rather than five for each. After that, Pro is $199/year.
The answer
Value once the tradeoffs are priced:
- BigCo
- $153K winner
- Startup
- $141K
- Stay put
- $135K
- Margin
- $12K the answer
BigCo wins at $153,000 adjusted, a $12,000 margin over the startup. That margin is the real answer: if any single penalty could plausibly be mispriced by more than $12,000, the decision is not settled yet; if not, it is. Swap in your own offers and honest prices for the commute, the growth, and the culture.
The model
Each offer starts at its salary. Then every dimension where it is not the best gets a dollar penalty: what you would pay per year to fix it. The best offer on a dimension scores 0.
| Stay put | $145,000 − $10,000 in penalties |
| BigCo offer | $165,000 − $12,000 in penalties |
| Startup offer | $150,000 − $9,000 in penalties |
| Adjusted values | computed and compared |
Once it is in your sheet
- The model arrives with real numbers in it and runs as it stands, so you can press the button first and understand it second.
- Change the numbers to yours. The sheet marks which cells are inputs and which hold formulas, and most labels carry a note explaining the row.
- Press the run button at the bottom of the panel. It is labeled for the tool you are in, and the result lands on its own tab, with a written reading of it beside the figures.
Never used Google Sheets? Start here goes the whole way, in seven steps, and assumes nothing.
Next question
- Whose calendar is the real critical path?Is Anyone Double-Booked?
- Can the panel agree on an order, if not on scores?Rank the Candidates
- Does the plan need one person in two places?Agency Load: Who Is Overbooked?
- You are 43% done. When does the project actually finish?Will the Project Finish on Time?
- What should your day rate actually be?What Day Rate Does a Freelancer Need to Charge?
- Who should work on which project?Best-Fit Assignments
Every model like this one, and the method behind them: Decision trees.