After having left my last company about a month ago, I have one, possibly two pending job offers in the same industry.
Project manager in a medium size IT consulting firm, similar to my last job, but with a much smaller local presence. (offer extended, waiting to find out $$$ details)
Project manager in a small IT strategy group in a Fortune 50 company. (not final yet)
The thing is, I don’t particularly care for either job.
Job 1 has an easy commute (accross the street from my last job) but the offices are a freakin dump. They’re small, cramped, uncomfortibly hot and mostly unfurnished with the usual corporate artwork and furniture that usually lets people know they didn’t just move in last week. The company has a tiny local presence and crappy infrastructure. They are planning to “grow” (who isn’t) except that I’ve been through the whole “we are planning to grow” bullshit before, often ending up out of work in 3-9 months or quiting in a year out of frustration.
Job 2 is fine, but sounds boring as hell and it’s a far commute in a shitty-ass neighborhood with no place to eat nearby.
The people at both companies appear to be your basic uninspiring middle-age office types. In fact, my “fantastic” background is why they are so eager to hire me. So basically, I will be like a slightly older verson of Ryan from The Office at one of these places.
So, as money is not an issue for me at the moment, do I take one of these jobs and just keep looking until I find what I want or do I enjoy the summer playing Grand Theft Auto IV?
Wait it out. No one’s going to do any growing in the near future with the economy the way it is, and there’s no sense going to work for people who think they will. If you background has these folks excited, it will get better folks excited, too. Best wishes.
What you need to do is send ME a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV.
And a PS3.
But seriously - Those two sound like jobs I’d be trying to get out of. I am in a job that kind of keeps me on the border between wanting to leave and wanting to ride on a wave that might be going up (ok that’s a crap anaology) I’m with ultrafinder
If you can afford to play all summer.
Will either one give you the opportunity to work in dialogue from the Alec Baldwin scene in Glengarry Glen Ross? 'Cause that’s really the only thing I look for in my next job. “Put…that…coffee…down. Coffee is for closers.”
Of course, I’ve been through the start-up/grow-up ghetto a few times and don’t really care to play that shell game with people who can’t tie their own shoes without fucking it up. On the other hand, money is nice and it lets me by things that keep me dry and fill up my stomach, so that’s always a consideration in just how sucky of a job I’ll take or stick with. That, and the fact that my plans to be a Derek Flint-esque spy, genius, and raconteur don’t look like they’re going to pan out any time soon.
In between marathon sessions of Grand Theft Auto IV read Joseph Heller’s Something Happened to remind you of why you don’t want to take any random corporate job.
And that’s all of the advice I have. If you figure it all out and how to escape the mindless grind while not living in a prefab cabin in northern Idaho and plotting the demise of Western civilization, drop me a line and let me know.
Well yes. People who are fired from their jobs can. Technically the term in consulting, law and financial services firms is being “counseled out”. Basically, in my case, it means business was slow so we decided to arbitrarily let someone go. “Arbitrary” is probably the best way to describe my old company. Promotions, raises and bonuses tend to be given (or NOT given) based on relationships, not performance without any real formal feedback.
Kind of a shame since my coworkers were pretty nice to hang out with. It’s just that senior management tended to be a bunch of ambivalent douchebags.
The nice thing about Company 2 is that the words Manager, Global, Strategy and Fortune 500 never look bad on your resume. Now if they would only move their offices out of the sticks and back into the stupid-ass Manhattan landmark with their freakin corporate logo still written on the side of it, it would be a perfect job until I find a new one.
Yup, there are people who can leave a job at will. In my case it is known as the “married to a spouse with a good job” phenomenon. And don’t think I don’t appreciate my good fortune every day, because I know exactly how lucky I am.
Having said that, I cannot imagine for a moment not working. Well, I can, because I’ve been unemployed. And it drove me batty. I can see not selecting a particular job, and I can sure sympathize with hating the job you are in, but not wanting to work at all? Wow.
Oh yeah, the OP should look for a job that actually has some appeal.
Being unemployed sucks. You can’t really enjoy your time off because you constantly have looking for a job hanging over your head. Also it’s a pretty weird feeling not having anything to do while the rest of the world is at work.
I hate work as much as the next guy, but I would still want to do something that involved other people. I think it’s too isolating just hanging out all day while everyone is working.
Working part-time is perfect for me - the best of both worlds. I have somewhere to go and something to do every day, so I don’t sleep till noon and waste the day, but I get off at 2 so I can still look after the stuff that people have to look after. And it is too isolating being alone all day - I don’t need a lot of socialization, but I do need some.
Standard advice. Grab a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle. Pros on one side, cons on the other and see how the scores add up. I suspect we both know how that one’s going to wind up.
So if you do decide to get back in the work force right now, which one will suck the least amount of life out of you before you find something better?
You could always take one of the jobs until something better comes along. And FWIW, I took a mindless corporate job recently, with the intention of moving on asap, and it turns out that I actually kind of like my job. I leave, and I’m not even full of hate! It’s amazing!
Well, Job 2 is probably a better job and will look better on my resume but the commute and location is terrible. Although everyone assured me that “nothing bad usually happens in this neighborhood” however everyone is anxious to leave before dark.
Job 1 is a much better commute, however it’s a small practice in a mid-size relatively unknown company.
Except the headhunter for Job 1 is really pissing me off and I may reject it out of spite. Basically, I expressed some concerns about the small size and condition of the office and whether it will be a stable place to be for the next 5 years. So because of that, the headhunter said they don’t want to be embarassed by going through the trouble of writing up a formal offer letter and having me reject it. So essentially we’ve left it they have verbally offered me the job and told me the salary however they won’t give a written offer until I have verbally accepted. Which, of course, I will not do until I have a written statement of what the offer is, including salary, vacation, benefits, etc. Catch-22 (Best catch there is).
If you boil the bullshit away there’s not really a Catch-22; they aren’t making an offer. In real terms, there is no offer unless it’s written down. What they want is for you to stop looking for other jobs, so THEN they can offer you a lowball salary.
If your qualifications are as good as you say they are, you would be insane to work for this company. They haven’t even hired you and they’re already demonstrating a rather pathetic lack of profesisonalism and basic business savoir faire.
Of course, we don’t know how much you don’t need the job. When I was laid off (to my absolute joy) last March I didn’t need a job right away - but every day I wasn’t working I was surrending a substantial opportunity cost. Sure, my severance package would float me for awhile, but why use it to pay living expenses when I could get a job and use it to pay debts or make home improvements or buy something nice? So I got a job right away.
I guess my point is that whilke I think you’d be nucking futs to work for Job 1, Job 2 is an issue of your own personal tradeoff between a boring job and long commute and the money you’d be stashing away. Personally, I think when you’re young, you should stash it away just as fast as humanly possible.
It’s been my experience that any company that tries to compel someone to immediately accept an offer like that is not the type of place I want to work at. I don’t know if this is coming from the company or their third-party recruiter. If you want me that badly, you shouldn’t be worried about me taking a couple of days to decide.
Anyhow, I decided to blow him off until Monday. If they recind the offer, I’ll knowI made he right decision.