Advice: renege high paying offer for TFA?

Hey guys,

So I went through corporate recruiting at a top target school and got a rotational management offer from a relatively anonymous multibillion dollar eCommerce company. During the interview process it seemed like it would be a mix of strategy, process improvement, and talent management which seemed great so I accepted and dropped out of all my other final round interviews and offers (non-MBB consulting and more well known LDPs). It's only been a month since I've had the offer and I'm really really really starting to regret it. The pay and benefits are great (100k+ total comp) and people do manage to go to M7 business schools but after talking to a couple of alumni from my school the job seems a lot more general management/talent management with the occasional process improvement project and 0 strategy. I was really really hoping to do strategy or business analysis work when I graduated.

However a lot of the opportunities have passed now and I don't actually have anything else secured. I was really heavily considering TFA before I accepted the eCommerce offer and I am pretty passionate about education. I talked to the recruiter alot and I feel like it would be more aligned with my interests and save me from feeling suffocated. I think the main issue with the current job I accepted is I'm really not excited about the work I would be doing and it lacks flexibility.

So a few of my questions
1.Would you go with TFA instead?
2.Do you think having a more operations oriented background at the start of your career prevents you from transitioning into strategy or business analysis later in your career?
3. How badly do you think the signaling issue might affect my next career move(literally no one has ever heard of this random company but it somehow recruit at ivies)
4. Would you choose a lower paying small strategy boutique (not name brand) instead of this eCommerce management job?

Any feedback is greatly appreciated! I've been mulling over this for weeks.

 
Best Response

I'm assuming you are coming straight out of school? I think you should take the job and actually find out for yourself what it is/exactly what you will be doing. Things have a way of sounding like x and turning out to be y and then some once you are actually there. Heck, maybe you can even mold the role towards strategy. Regardless, you need to be there to find out. I wouldn't spurn a very high paying offer because you may feel 'suffocated' by it. Worse case is you can't stand it after a year or two and you go back to the TFA route with a decent resume, experience and a very high salary to work from going forward (and, ideally, some spare cash).

For what it is worth, I think that if you are just starting out you should jump in and find out for yourself whether it is right for you; especially considering you spurned your other options.

 

I would take the job and give it a chance for 6 months to year. I think its a general symptom of ambitious people to be always seeking something better or more exciting, even when they have something great. I got a great job halfway through my senior year of undergrad and even though I was really excited, there were moments when I though about continuing to interview for other offers or considered trying to defer and do other stuff. The strategy issue thing is a slight bummer, but honestly if you network hard enough I'm sure you can find a role where you're working on Corp Dev/ Strategy. And if you can't you can always start looking for a job after a year and probably be more competitive for consulting positions.

From what I hear TFA is pretty brutal and not nearly as glamorous as people make it out to be. Stick with what you have and if you hate it then move after a year.

 

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