Goldman Layoffs: Back to Goldman or Impact Investing Dream Job?

Screw GS and go with the impact investing job. As you mentioned, life is short and do what you're interested in.

And if you're worried about public office you can spin it and say that you are a man of the people and can relate to being laid off. Also makes you seem resilient and intelligent for picking yourself back up and doing something you actually enjoy.

This takes about 30 seconds to think through.

Out of curiosity - how is it possible that GS both fired and hired you? Is it another IBD team? Why didn’t they just transfer you?

I fail to see how staying at GS salvages your resume. If anything people will think you were pushed out into another role which is worse than being laid off during a period of mass layoffs across Wall Street. I assume most people don’t look for a job at the same bank that just laid them off. 

If you leave, at least you can spin it as you left your banking job for another opportunity that you’re passionate about. 

One word of caution - try not to get into emerging markets investing right now (a lot of impact Investment firms invest in Asia / Africa) - those markets are fucked and will take a long time to recover

If it's a quality impact team, go for it. What you don't want is to join some shop that does all concessionary type deals. I'll say that the level of sophistication and rigor of work can vary quite a bit depending on where you end up.

1. This is strangely specific. i suspect you are easily identifiable based on these details. 

2. go back to goldman. several reasons:

(1)  goldman taking you back would indeed mitigate the damage of your layoff *assuming this isn't a massive step down from your prior role*. going from ibd to wealth management would prove nothing about your performance but would make it 1000x harder to get back into high finance,

(2) maybe goldman gives you back your prior role or a similar one if the market improves. not sure how gs does internal transfers

(3)  if it hasn't been long since your layoff, id think hard about framing this as an internal transfer on your resume (so no mention of a layoff). then recruit laterally and say you want a slightly adjacent role to the one that canned you (ie maybe a different industry coverage team)

I would take the dream job. Don’t live by fear or concern of what other people might think. The truth is no one is actually paying attention to you; people tend to only care about themselves and no one is really watching your situation, nor cares. “Prestige” is valued by recent college graduates and insecure adults. I used to feel the same as you, but, as you get older, your values change (grow).

The layoff can be easily explained to future employers because it’s a circumstance of the economy (they’ll see 2023 and understand) and it’s in the headlines. Your layoff is not a reflection of your performance and I think that will be obvious since your resume is otherwise perfect as you said. Plus, if you were good at your job and acquired a nice skill set, that will shine through in your interviews.

By the way, I’m sure GS has some helpful connections to get into the public sector, but it’s certainly not the only ticket in the door, and in some circles it might even be seen as a negative. I remember a lot of politicians in the GFC and over the years have questioned why so many former GS employees have held high ranking government jobs, and they’ve sought to change this (“government sachs”).

You already have GS on your resume so I don't see much incremental value of doubling that, and the layoffs were very widely reported / happened at a lot of banks so doubt anyone is thinking it was performance related... Take the dream job without question. Impact is a great space.