Dear Joyce: I'm about to take a job offer as a department head at a prominent company that I don't really want to accept because I think it will not advance my skills and it will be boring. So why take a job I could do with one hand tied behind my back? Because I suspect I'm about to be terminated for cost overruns that weren't my fault. Advice? Recruiters? -- R.L.

Dear R.L.: You're a few notches lower than that required to celebrate being ousted. Work your tail off to land a CEO position at a big corporation. Then, if you do flub, maybe you'll be handed millions of dollars on your way out the door. A recent "Business Week" commentary notes that after 17 months at Procter & Gamble, the company's CEO was booted with a $9.5 million wave goodbye even though its stock plunge of 50 percent cost P&G shareholders more than $70 billion.

Earlier this year, Conseco Inc., led into deep trouble by its CEO, kissed him off with $49.3 million. The Mattel CEO, bounced for failing to hit expected profit marks, walked away $50 million richer, a move mandating the sale of boats of Barbies. Shareholder activists, citing a number of cases like these, say the farewell extravaganzas send the perverse message that failure has its reward. Blaming the severance largesse on corporate boards, which are populated with CEOs serving as outside directors, activists accuse the board members of looking out for their own.

Most people who are lower on the food chain agree with Charles M. Elson, a corporate director and law professor at the University of Delaware. Elson believes that "no one should expect to make a fortune for failing at their job."

Having gotten the point that nothing succeeds like failure off my chest, here's what I think about your problem. You know that time is your enemy. Today contact two or three promising contingency (paid only when their candidate is hired) recruiters with your updated résumé. Many recruiters prefer getting your résumé by e-mail because they say spending too much time on the telephone wipes out their day. If you don't hear from your chosen recruiters within a couple of days, call anyway or find other recruiters.

Illustrations of why you should expect prompt responses are seen in two nontraditional notions recruiting industry insiders are floating in online professional newsletters. The first notion is that contingency recruiters shouldn't let hot candidates rot in their files during the greatest economy the world has known but actively market them to employers. Back to the future: Employment agencies have long found jobs for people. But until talent shortages hit, recruiters limited themselves to finding people for jobs.

But - follow the money - because employers pay the hiring bills, retained (paid a fee whether or not hiring occurs) recruiters aren't being advised to find jobs for people.

The other nontraditional notion is that the recruiter's client is not the employer but the candidate. Not true, but the statement reflects the difficulty recruiters are experiencing in finding high-quality candidates in today's marketplace. One recruiter claimed to have moved a candidate three times in five years, for example.

If you're a plum pick, you can expect recruiters to hustle to your aid today. Use the pending offer you don't really want as leverage to generate offers you do want -- tell the recruiters you're entertaining an offer from a well-known company and time is of the essence.

What if you run out of time and you see the axe swinging in the air? Clarify your mind with an exercise somewhat like writing your own obituary, a favorite drill of career-planning workshops.

Write a make-believe résumé as it would appear a year from now. Include the pending job you don't want, but reinvent it to make it more interesting because you sought out additional challenging assignments. The following day, reflect on how your life went up or down during your year in that job. Trust your instincts and decide accordingly.

© 2000, Los Angeles Times Syndicate