Want to Invest and Get Seriously Rich? Find the Right Employer!

Some Employers Will Actually Build a Portfolio For You

One of my favorite editions of Fortune Magazine is the one that details the best companies to work for because it lets you see the various priorities different management has from one firm to the next. Reading this year’s list, it’s clear that it appears the an increasing percentage of corporate Boards want employees to grow substantial personal nest eggs under the theory that happy employees are stable, productive, long-term employees that are unlikely to leave. In many cases this takes the form of a so-called “working dividend” that can be upwards of 15% or more of salary, deposited directly into a retirement account or profit sharing plan. In other, more extreme instances such as one U.S.-based construction company mentioned, the stock is held entirely by the workers, resulting in the cash dividend income for some long-term employees actually exceeds their paychecks! As a professional investor, reading that gives me the same sense of excitement that some people feel when they hear their favorite team won the Super Bowl.

You need to begin thinking of potential employers are farm soil. In some cases, you are actually going to end up wealthier being mediocre at an excellent firm than you would be excelling at a business mired in mindless bureaucracy. If you’re going to work, why not do it in an environment that makes you want to “tap dance” to the office, as Warren Buffett put it, and in the meantime, get paid handsomely for doing it?

How to you begin? Here are some easy steps:

1. Don’t just look for work like throwing darts at a newspaper. Finding the right job is just as important as finding the right spouse. Obviously, if you don’t have any income sources, you may need to take something temporarily while you’re looking. You wouldn’t just marry whomever came along and talked to you once at a bar or church chicken dinner, would you? Why would you accept a job just because it’s available?

2. Think about the problem backwards – what benefits do you want? What pay? What type of environment? In what part of the country? Working with what type of people? Now, unless you own the business outright, you aren’t going to be able to necessarily get everything on your wish list. That’s okay. Use resources such as the Fortune edition to specifically go after companies that can provide those greener pastures. Financially, it’s better to be a janitor at Google than a Vice President at some of the now-defunct steel mills.