Unemployed for awhile, should I take any offer?
Hey guys,
I've been unemployed for roughly 6 months and came from a sell-side capital markets gig at an IB (several years). It's been a tough 6 months trying to convert my experiences into a role of my liking (either continuing the capital markets route and/or moving to corporate strategy / corporate development). What're your thoughts on accepting any offer even if it's off track of your long-term career goals. I have an offer to move into commercial banking for a niche area. Will taking the role make it excessively harder to break back into capital markets at a later time or can I still leverage my prior experience? Curious about your thoughts here, thanks!
Six months is really not that long, although it likely feels very challenging psychologically. I would say that taking up to 9 months to find the right thing is not unreasonable. People (employers) generally understand, I think, that recruiting processes just take time.
What does your pipeline look like? Do you have other opportunities on the horizon, or is this the only thing you really have at the moment?
The danger of taking a job you're not psyched about is that you'll likely want to leave within a year anyway, in which case what's the point? On the other hand, in the meantime it allows you to pay the bills and keep recruiting. It all really comes down to your level of risk aversion, coupled with your financial reality (how badly do you need a paycheck right now). I'd say hold out if you can, but that's just me (I'm not a risk averse person). It could backfire on you - what happens if you go another couple months and you still don't have anything? How will you feel then? Again, assess your own risk appetite for worst case scenario. How confident are you in riding it out?
Thoughts on taking whatever offer just to pay the bills, but then keep searching? If something comes up, then give in your notice to leave. Worse case, just dont update your resume for the recent job offer or use them as a reference.
Bump - just did this and would appreciate any insight.
I had a 2 months gap and I feel like recruiters / HR always poked at that. To OP, I think as long as you’ve got a story to back that gap you’re fine.
Yeah, if you need to pay the bills then that's Option B. I don't have "thoughts" on it because if that's your financial reality, that's your financial reality. It's not really a matter of opinion.
Whether you should take the shittier job in the meantime and keep hunting, just as a means of limiting risk, is a different question if it's not really about immediately going broke. In that case, it's just about your level of risk aversion, as I said before.
A friend and I were job hunting simultaneously (both unemployed). I held out for 10 months for a role I felt good about - she took your Option B after about 5-6 months. A month in and she regrets it and is going to keep job hunting. On the other hand, I feel pretty satisfied with my choice and am glad I held out. To be real though, there were a couple times I came quite close to taking something I was less than 100% about, because no one can read the future. But in the end, I stuck to my guns, because a bad job really f*ing sucks. My friend is more risk averse than I am, though, so for her it felt worth it to get a brand name company on her resume and have a paycheck in the immediate term, and figure the rest out later. So, again, you just have to ask yourself what the absolutely worst case scenario is and how you would feel if that were to ultimately be reality. These are personal decisions based on who you are as a person, so what works for one person will not work for another.
what specifically was your capital markets gig?
All about riding the line between what's plausible/practical/pays the bills and what you love.
Any thoughts about continuing the search while employed? Say I found something in say one month time. If I left it off my resume, how would you tell your story? It's pretty bad to omit things out of the resume, so if your new potential employer found out you'd worked somewhere for a short stint you could possibly be terminated. With that in mind, you should always mention the short stint even during the interview process. How would you tell the story? You definitely can't say you took it as a survival job, that just looks terribly bad.
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