Blog Post: Considering internal and external job opportunities

Thank you in advance for your consideration. .
 

Answer:

Good employees are worth keeping, even if they move away. Since you can still contribute electronically, and you already know the company, there would be a big advantage to retaining you.

I asked Christine Sharrow, a Milwaukee-based consultant, who contracts her marketing expertise for several remote organizations. “It’s really a win-win because she knows the company, the industry, and already has contacts in her role, and the employer doesn’t have to go through hiring and training someone new—and they can budget for the Website content.”

When deciding to make a pitch for this kind of relationship, Sharrow has some suggestions, “The first thing to consider is trust between yourself and the employer, since she will be working off-site.” Trust goes beyond the quality of work you produce. If they know you are reliable and have a good work ethic, they will consider structuring a deal.

You might approach your employer with a base monthly pay rate for say, 20 hours a week, which would include all your research for the articles and the writing time.  If you also upload the articles, find graphics, or photos to illustrate the articles, these duties add to the time spent on the Website content.

Sharrow adds, “She could look at a prior month of Website work, estimate how many hours she worked on it, and come up with a monthly fee for that number of hours. As an example, perhaps she could ask for $2,000 per month, for 80 hours of work (20 hours per week) or $25 per hour. Sometimes she’ll work fewer hours, sometimes she’ll work more, but for the most part, it should balance out over the year.  Since she’s working for a small business, the employer would probably rather have a set amount to pay her each month for budgeting purposes.”

Sharrow suggests, “Each month, she could submit an invoice listing the articles she wrote, with the number of words for each article (or whatever benchmark they agree on) and after six months, they could revisit the pay scale and workload, once they’ve each had a chance to see how it works for both of them.”  This is especially true if they trust you and have a history of fair dealings with you.

It would also be a good idea to establish regular times to review your work and discuss changes they would like to make. That way there won’t be any surprises. You could set up a regular call schedule and then visit periodically, so you maintain relationships and keep the partnership solid.

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