job offers: IBM, Citrix, or ExxonMobil IT?

Career decision:

Need help weighing the pros and cons as I debate offers, really tough split decision:

ExxonMobil IT: 105K, semi-normal hours doing different tech projects within the company and rotating every 6 months to 2 years.

IBM Consulting: 85K Salary, full time travel Monday-thursday, exposed to a lot of diversity in projects. Long hours, good exposure.

Citrix: 80K + free housing. Leadership program. Intensive training and certification program that puts you on track to become a consultant or sales engineer. Specific to Citrix technologies, you roll off and travel full time unless you decide to work sales.

Please help me decide and weight the pros and cons!

5 Comments
 
Best Response

First question: What are you looking to do in the future? MBA? Tech Management? Unsure?

The ExxonMobil is probably the most unique of the three offers. It seems like it's a rotational program that is very hard to obtain an offer for. It will also probably introduce you to various parts of the IT business which is great to have.

IBM-Seems like a good choice. Did they tell you which industry/product you would be working on? Pretty good offer as well. Traveling might be cool. Which office is this for? Chicago?

Citrix- I used to work on a Citrix project and although was impressed with their products would not want to work for/with their products. I see the business value, but don't see the implementation value. What product would you be working with?

My vote would be for ExxonMobil. What are the locations for these offers? Are you taking that into account?

I feel that you could get into IBM anytime and they don't seem as impressive to me. Citrix doesn't seem interesting at all.

 

I am also leaning towards Exxon. For ibm, it is their summit leadership program which is intended to produce Technical Sales reps that manage a territory, and sell cloud, AI, ERP, cyber security, and a host of other solutions. It's also a great program. Citrix is kind of off the table, although i really like their products I am not as comfortable with their brand name and leave opportunities. Take the oil money for a few years, and then reevaluate.

 

Exxon would be a good choice.

Sales would be interesting and could land you a lot of money now and in the future as selling software can be a great skill to have. A lot of companies are reluctant to upgrade software unless they absolutely need to or a necessary function comes about. But it seems like it might be a sink or swim type thing.

 

If you're into the energy sector, go with Exxon. Otherwise, I'd take IBM. I know quite a few people who went there post-undergrad and the exit ops are broader than I would have expected (a lot of folks lateral up to good T2 consulting shops, out to strategy groups, move to start-ups - while the work is very digital oriented, market perception in consulting and strategy is still as a major consulting firm, if not as strong as MBB/Deloitte/ATK/LEK/Strat&/OW/Parthenon - IBM is well represented for c-suite or division head work).

 

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