The Premium on Proximity

For the last few years, proximity at work has largely been a conversation about geography. How many days are you in the office? How far are you prepared to commute? Does being physically present still matter?

There is another kind of proximity I'd encourage you to think about, particularly when you're considering your next career move.

What will the opportunity put you close to?

Salary matters. So does the title, flexibility, location, benefits and the company you're joining. They're all reasonable things to weigh up when you're comparing opportunities.

But they don't tell you everything about the value of a role.

Some of that value is much harder to see when you're looking at an offer. It comes from the people you'll work with, the problems you'll encounter, the decisions you'll be exposed to and the things you'll learn because you were close enough to them.

And that can have considerable value later.

Look closely at who you'll be working for

A good boss and a comfortable boss aren't necessarily the same thing.

Some of the people who teach us most during our careers are demanding. They have high standards. They question the work. They expect us to know more. They give us things we're not entirely convinced we're ready for.

I'm not suggesting anyone should tolerate a toxic working environment in the name of career development. But I wouldn't automatically mark a demanding boss down as a negative either.

If someone is exceptional at what they do and you're going to work closely with them, factor that into the opportunity.

Ask yourself what you could learn from being around them for the next two or three years.

Look at the problems you'll get close to

The same applies to the work itself.

A business going through a difficult transformation might not look as comfortable as one where everything is running beautifully. But if it puts you in the middle of problems you haven't solved before, that experience has value.

Perhaps you'll see a new technology taken from experimentation into production. Perhaps you'll encounter scale for the first time. You might get closer to customers, commercial decisions or senior leadership. You might see something fail and understand why.

Don't just ask whether you can do the job you're being offered. Look at what you'll have the opportunity to learn how to do.

And if part of the role leaves you feeling slightly out of your depth, don't automatically treat that as a reason to step away. Ask whether it's the kind of stretch that could make you considerably better at what you do.

Put future value into the equation

This is the difficult bit.

The things we normally use to compare opportunities are easy to see.

You know what another £15,000 looks like. You know what an extra day working from home gives you. You can see the bigger title on the organisation chart.

It's much harder to put a number on two years spent working alongside someone exceptional, being involved in a major transformation or getting access to decisions you haven't previously been senior enough to see.

But that doesn't mean those things have no value.

Their value may simply arrive later.

It can show up in what you're capable of doing, the responsibilities you're ready to take on, the opportunities you're considered for and, ultimately, what the market is prepared to pay you.

So when you're assessing your next opportunity, I'd encourage you to put proximity into the decision alongside the usual considerations.

Who will you learn from?

What will you get close enough to understand properly?

What difficult things will you have the chance to do?

What decisions will you be exposed to?

And perhaps most importantly:

What could you leave knowing how to do that you can't do today?

You don't have to choose the hardest job, the most demanding boss or the least comfortable option.

But you should know what you're turning down.

Because some of the most valuable things an opportunity can give you won't appear anywhere in the offer letter.