OT: need advice about difficult career choice

Shellhead wrote: One in the hand or two in the bush? Which would you choose?

My current job is tolerable. I am earning $20K less than my old job, but the company is stable and the job is secure, in part because they would have trouble finding somebody with my experience willing to accept the low payrate and lousy benefits. The company is growing, but not very quickly, so I will probably be struggling with really tight cash flows for at least the next year or two. I settled for this job after ten months of unemployment, so I don't have much money saved.

A job recruiter found my resume online yesterday and is now trying really hard to recruit me for a contract job. The job would pay exactly twice my current payrate and last for six months. It might get extended to a year or even go permanent, and the company is big and healthy and likes to promote people from within the organization.

The reason why the money is so good is that the company is looking for a "purple squirrel," a candidate with a very unlikely combination of skills and experience including a variety of standard accounting tasks, financial analysis, technical accounting and experience with derivatives trading. Since nobody in the metro area has all of that, they are willing to settle for somebody who can learn the job. I have only worked for small CPA firms and other small companies, and have only a vague understanding of derivatives, but I am hands-on with a wide variety of accounting tasks.

So, should I throw away my safe but low-paying job for six months at twice the pay? I won't even get to meet the people that I might work with at the new job, because they are in a hurry to fill the position now, and the recruiter doesn't want them talking directly to me until they sign the contract for my services.

Here is my personal experience. Make of it what you will. Been working for 15 years in a stable, secure, well paid job with great insurances and vacation. Didn't enjoy the job much, but reasoned that such a job was for the best. After 15 years, I am now suffering from depression, mostly due to forcing myself to do this job. After four months of psychology, medication and being at home, I am looking forward to a change of career. Less well paid, but will enjoy it much more. Working with children instead of computers.

Michael Barnes wrote: Well Steve, you were kind of asking for it by wearing those low-cut tops to work.

At this time of year, it would be my tight-fitting sweaters.

Shellhead wrote: One in the hand or two in the bush? Which would you choose?

My current job is tolerable. I am earning $20K less than my old job, but the company is stable and the job is secure, in part because they would have trouble finding somebody with my experience willing to accept the low payrate and lousy benefits. The company is growing, but not very quickly, so I will probably be struggling with really tight cash flows for at least the next year or two. I settled for this job after ten months of unemployment, so I don't have much money saved.

A job recruiter found my resume online yesterday and is now trying really hard to recruit me for a contract job. The job would pay exactly twice my current payrate and last for six months. It might get extended to a year or even go permanent, and the company is big and healthy and likes to promote people from within the organization.

The reason why the money is so good is that the company is looking for a "purple squirrel," a candidate with a very unlikely combination of skills and experience including a variety of standard accounting tasks, financial analysis, technical accounting and experience with derivatives trading. Since nobody in the metro area has all of that, they are willing to settle for somebody who can learn the job. I have only worked for small CPA firms and other small companies, and have only a vague understanding of derivatives, but I am hands-on with a wide variety of accounting tasks.

So, should I throw away my safe but low-paying job for six months at twice the pay? I won't even get to meet the people that I might work with at the new job, because they are in a hurry to fill the position now, and the recruiter doesn't want them talking directly to me until they sign the contract for my services.

I really appreciate the advice that I got in this thread years ago, and I am resurrecting it to address a similar difficult career choice.

First, an update. As I mentioned earlier, I did try for the purple squirrel job and got shot down, probably because I was just filling out a resume quota as a dark horse candidate. I stuck it out for another year at the crappy job, and started a covert job search after re-financing my house. After nine months, I landed a job that pays $35,000 a year more than the crappy job paid, and I am still at the good job. My renter moved out and my girlfriend moved in, and our relationship has gotten even better over the last two years.

So, the new difficult career choice is actually hers and not mine. It took her 15 years to get a bachelors degree. She switched schools twice over the years, and finally got a marketing degree four years ago from an expensive liberal arts college with a good local reputation. She worked hard at a combination of part-time jobs until finally landing the full-time job last year. The pay is on the low side, the work is challenging, and she is stressed out. Between student loan payments and medical bills, she is very reliant on me for money. I make the house payments, I pay the utilities, I buy some of her groceries, and I cover major expenses like car repairs. We live in a strong job market where the current unemployment rate is 3.1%, and the unemployment rate here is always better than the national average.

One of her college friends lives in California now. That friend keeps telling my girlfriend that she should quit her full-time job to take a challenging six-month contract position in Los Angeles, just to get some valuable experience and pick up some new skills for her resume. Then she can move back to the Midwest with inflated salary requirements.

I think it's a horrible idea. First and foremost, a six-month gig in California is more likely to damage her resume than boost it. Employers will see that she moved from the Midwest to an expensive West Coast city for basically a temp job, and they will think she is a flake. Second, she wouldn't get benefits as a contract worker, so she would need to set aside money for taxes and pay a lot more for health insurance. Third, our economy is overdue for another recession, and the trade war will probably be the trigger, so this seems like a terrible time to leave a full-time job. Fourth, I think it would be better for her resume to stick it out at the current job for at least two years, rather than have multiple short-term jobs back to back on her resume. (The two previous part-time jobs, the current job, and this potential gig would mean four jobs in four years.)

On a personal level, I find additional reasons to hate the idea. Given her current financial status, there is zero doubt that she will expect me to pay for her airfare and rent and utilities. She thinks that she can just sleep on a couch at the friend's place, but that doesn't seem like a great plan for somebody in her late 30s with a back problem and a chronic medical condition. And I hate the idea of us being apart for six months at a time when we have been successfully getting past some bad stuff that happened at a previous point in our relationship.

Am I wrong? Is this potentially a great career move for her? Are employers no longer biased against job hoppers?

A couple of people reading this may know my girlfriend and where she works right now. Please don't name any names here. Thanks.

What are your girlfriend's long-term goals regarding her professional life?

Great question. She wants to move from a professional but hands-on role to a management position. She has some very limited management experience in her past that is unrelated to her current profession. Someday she would like to either start her own business or go to work for a non-profit with a cause that she supports.

Boy, like, this is a tough answer but I think it is definitely in large part a relationship question rather than a job question. It depends on if 6 months away from each other is going to be impossible. I will say, and this is just me with limited information, my guess is that she wants to do it and if you tell her you don't want her to do it it's going to be super hard (maybe fatal) to your relationship anyway. People don't forgive stuff like that, even if they say it's ok. It tends to fester.

fwiw, I have done a very similar thing the last year but with the exception that her job is more permanent and certain (though her commitment to it, especially when we made the decision, was not), and there's no foreseeable end to the arrangment. I refused a lower paying, low status job without much advancement at the same employer when my spouse took a job in a different state. So now I commute during the school year and we only see each other 3-4 days a week... meaning I also drive 20 hours a week most weeks. It isn't good. I probably should have swallowed hard and taken the job, but I thought I'd be able to solve our situation more optimally if I stayed in my current job. It has been hard on our relationship because she is very bitter I didn't take the position.

She says that she doesn't know if she wants to do this, but her friend keeps bringing it up. It isn't a specific contract job, more the idea that this kind of contract work is common there. The first time she started to tell me about the idea, I blew up as soon as she mentioned moving to California. When she brought it up again this week, I managed to stay calm and let her talk about it for a while before responding. I think it's unfair that her friend is allowed to hammer on the idea but I have to bite my tongue. But I know that if I come out too strong against it, she will resent me for it. Ultimately, she's not my property and we're not married, so if she wants to go, she is free to go. But I think that move will kill our relationship, so I don't think that I should pay for anything involved. Our relationship has been improving since she moved back in with me, but it is probably isn't strong enough yet to survive a six-month absence.

Given that her goal is to move into a management role, that may be the key to talking her out of this. Employers don't want to hire job hoppers for management positions. The very essence of being a manager is taking responsibility, and switching jobs every year doesn't look responsible at all.

Shellhead wrote: Great question. She wants to move from a professional but hands-on role to a management position. She has some very limited management experience in her past that is unrelated to her current profession. Someday she would like to either start her own business or go to work for a non-profit with a cause that she supports.

I don't really know what best qualifies someone to be hired as a manager in the eyes of an employer.

I semi-regularly check an online portal for foreign aid jobs, and the vacancies in leadership positions require management experience in general, not at a number of different companies.

At least when it comes to engineering, people with both tech and management experience seem to be rare. Two acquaintances of mine have been promoted to project manager simply because they've been doing good work at their respective company for several years. These are smaller companies though, that value interpersonal relationships.

Was the California gig offered to your girlfriend? Or is it just a possibility? If the salary at her current job is the problem, maybe she could use the Cali job as leverage to get a raise?

There's a third option, she just hasn't found it yet. She should spend her time looking for it instead.

What Sag said.

First, why do you want her to stay with you instead of going to Cali? It comes off a little like you are trying to parent her and no person in their 30s should need to be parented. Not being able, or barely being able to, discuss the situation rationally is a bit of a red flag.


If she wants to do it, she is going to do it. The best you can do is chart out the Pros and Cons with the expectation that she will be going it alone monetarily. This could be a grand learning experience for her. Or it could be a garbage fire. But she has to know she that emotional, not financial, support is all that is forthcoming.


Finally, if your relationship cannot survive the distance and time separation, it is a very reliable weather gauge on whether it would have survived the next 2-5 years.

It doesn't sound like a good career move for what she wants to achieve. Which makes me wonder why the friend keeps bringing it up. What's his/her motivation, wanting your girlfriend there so they can hang out?
The third option suggested by Sagrilarus sound better than this.