Job hunters have the upper hand in the current competitive job market, and Kevin O’Leary says they should make sure to take advantage.
With employees quitting their jobs at record rates and employers competing to hold onto top talent, the “Money Court” judge and O’Shares ETFs chairman tells CNBC Make It that now is a great time to be looking for a job.
“The economy is changing,” O’Leary tells CNBC Make It. “I think everybody should understand that going forward, you as an employee have lots of flexibility.”
This is especially the case when it comes to remote work, with companies more likely than ever to allow a prospective employee to do their job away from the office.
“If you don’t want to move into a big office, you don’t have to,” O’Leary says. “There’s so many companies that today will let you work from home or work from a distance. It doesn’t mean you never go in, but it means you have flexibility.”
O’Leary says he has firsthand experience with this. The “Shark Tank” judge was recently conducting interviews with a candidate for a role in his finance department. Though they had started the negotiations with the understanding that the candidate would move to the east coast for the job, O’Leary says that he quickly realized she was reluctant to leave her home office setup and relocate her family.
“She didn’t want to move,” O’Leary says. “And today that becomes a big leveraging point. I still wanted her. She’s fantastic. So I agreed [and said] ‘Look, you don’t have to move.'”
In addition to flexibility, O’Leary also says that top candidates are in prime positions to secure generous compensation offers, especially if they’ve proven they can work well remotely.
“Strong people are getting great compensation packages today because there’s fewer of them out there,” he says. “Particularly ones that can prove that they can be part of teams remotely … and have shown effective leadership in that remote environment.”
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Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank.”