Career

Advise mode: this skill guides a human making their own career moves; it never acts on their behalf. User career data lives in ~/Clawic/data/career/ (see setup.md on first use, memory-template.md for file formats): profile.md holds comp history, market band, constraints, and stated values — create it on the first substantive session and update after each decision. If you have data at an old location (~/career/ or ~/clawic/career/), move it to ~/Clawic/data/career/.

When To Use

• An offer or counteroffer is on the table and the user must respond
• Deciding whether to stay, leave, or pivot role, company, or track
• Building a promotion case, asking for a raise, or diagnosing a stalled level
• Responding to a layoff, PIP, firing, or rescinded offer
• Valuing equity, comparing offers, or benchmarking comp against the market
• Not for writing the resume itself (resume) or running the application pipeline (job-search)

Quick Reference

Depth on demand: offers.md evaluate, compare, counter · equity.md RSUs, options, vesting math · promotion.md levels, calibration, internal raises · pivots.md role, industry, track changes, breaks, going independent · layoffs.md layoffs, PIPs, severance, visas · market.md benchmarking and staying liquid · executive.md director-and-above moves.

Core Rules

1. No BATNA, no decision. "Stay or go" without a concrete outside option is a mood poll. Check: can the user name a specific alternative and its comp? If not, the first step is generating options, not deciding.
2. Counter = 2 × target − offer. Offer 100k, target 112k, counter 124k: negotiations gravitate toward the midpoint of the two stated numbers, so countering at your target guarantees landing below it.
3. Switchers outprice stayers. Atlanta Fed Wage Growth Tracker: job switchers beat stayers by roughly 1-2 percentage points of annual wage growth in most years. This is the base-rate argument behind the 18-24 month market check even when content.
4. One-variable transitions. Per move, change role OR industry OR track (IC to manager), not two. Each simultaneous change resets leverage to beginner on that axis; two at once typically costs both comp and title.
5. Promotion is a lagging indicator. You get promoted for having already done the next level's job for 6-12 months with witnesses outside your team. If nobody above your manager can describe your work, the packet fails at calibration.
6. Negotiate the package, not the base. Typical employer flexibility, most to least: sign-on bonus, equity, start date and vacation, title and review timing, base. Sign-on is a one-time cost to them; moving base reprices their whole band.
7. Reversibility sets the risk bar. If a move can be undone within about 12 months (boomerang hire, internal transfer back, contract work), bias toward acting; irreversible moves (relocation with family, visa changes, walking away from a cliff) get the full BATNA-plus-runway treatment.
8. Resign only on paper. A verbal offer is a mood; resign only on a written offer with contingencies (background check, references) cleared. A rescind after resignation is a self-inflicted layoff.

The Decision Razor

Diagnose before prescribing; a bad manager and a bad career have opposite fixes.

• (a) Would a different manager fix this? Internal transfer before quitting (promotion.md). (b) Would the same role at a better company fix it? Switch companies, keep the role (Rule 4). (c) Does the work itself drain you even in good weeks, for 3+ months? Pivot, planned as a one-variable move (pivots.md).
• Quitting without an offer requires runway of at least 2× realistic search time. Senior searches commonly run 3-6 months, so hold 6-12 months of expenses in cash, not "some savings"; executive searches run longer — scale the same formula (executive.md).
• Tenure math: sunk years are not an asset; unvested equity is. Compute the dollar cost of leaving before the next vest date (equity.md) and treat only that number as the price of leaving.

Offer Response In Brief

Full sequence in offers.md; the spine:

1. Everything in writing: base, bonus target with payout history, equity grant with vest schedule and cliff, sign-on with clawback terms, refresher policy.
2. Compute annualized total comp yourself; recruiters quote best case.
3. Set target from the market band (market.md), never from current comp. "Current plus 15%" is an anchor, not a target.
4. Counter once at 2 × target − offer (Rule 2), justified with one sentence of market data, never personal need.
5. Base capped? Walk the flexibility ladder in Rule 6 order.

Internal negotiation is a different game: performance already known, peer equity beats market rate, and you need a champion in the room, not just a request (promotion.md). Never wave an external offer you are unwilling to take.

Output Gates

Before delivering career advice, check:

• Did I get current total comp, market band, and live alternatives before recommending any number or any stay/quit call?
• Is every counter I proposed computed as 2 × target − offer, not the midpoint of the visible range?
• Did I check unvested equity and cliff dates before endorsing a departure timeline?
• When no live alternative exists, did I recommend generating a BATNA instead of deciding?
• If visa_dependent or a non-US region applies, did I adjust legal defaults and timelines (layoffs.md)?
• Is the recommendation scored against the values in profile.md, not against brand prestige?

Configuration

User-dependent variables. Defaults apply until the user states a preference; store them in ~/Clawic/data/career/config.yaml.

Preference areas to record as the user reveals them:

• comp philosophy — cash vs equity weighting, appetite for private-company paper; affects offer scoring in offers.md and equity discounting in equity.md
• constraints — location and remote requirements, excluded industries, family or caregiving limits; affects option generation before any stay/leave call
• values ranking — what "better" means (comp, learning, autonomy, mission, hours), stored ranked in profile.md; affects how offers and stay/leave options are scored
• coaching style — frameworks only vs drafted word-for-word scripts, blunt vs cushioned delivery; affects the format of every negotiation deliverable

Traps

Where Experts Disagree

• Passion-first vs skill-first: both schools hold conditionally. Under about 5 years of experience, skills compound faster than self-knowledge, so bias skill-first (the career-capital position, Newport); with rare skills banked, passion picks between good options.
• Generalist vs specialist: specialize while the field expands (early markets pay depth); generalize as it consolidates (mature markets pay range and management).
• Loyalty premium: tenure-track systems (government, academia, some East Asian conglomerates) genuinely pay tenure; the switcher math of Rule 3 is calibrated to open-market private sectors and reverses there.

Related Skills

More Clawic skills, get them at https://clawic.com/skills/career (install if the user confirms):

• job-search — running the pipeline: applications, company research, interview prep
• resume — when the decision is made and materials need targeting
• negotiate — negotiation mechanics beyond comp: limits, principals, approvals
• comp-design — the employer side: designing base, bonus, and equity mix

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