You’ve got two job offers:
Option 1 is a job at a fantastic company, with great people, doing something you want to be doing.
Option 2 is a job at a good company, with good people, doing ok work. But, it pays $10,000 more than Option 1.
Which do you pick?
This might seem obvious when you’re sitting there reading this, but when you’re faced with the choice, a ton of people choose the extra $10,000. I have a lot of friends who chose that big firm accounting job over the fun startup, or that big firm law job over the boutique one. They really, really wanted to work at the startup or the boutique firm, but the big firm job paid $5000, or $10,000, or $20,000 more. Even when they’re miserable after 6 months, they keep plugging along. They’re beholden to that number.
The saddest part is, when I point out that an extra $10,000 a year amounts to about $200 a week, or maybe $140 a week after taxes, I can see them die a little bit inside. They never thought about it like that.
Now, if a $140 a week will make a substantial difference in your life, if it’s the difference between paying the minimum balance on 4 maxed out credit cards and eating three cups of ramen a day versus gaining some financial stability and eating like an adult, by all means, sell out your dream for a few years.
But remember, you’re likely going to be at your job 10 hours a day, five or six days a week. You’re likely to be thinking about your job more like 16 or 18 hours a day. Unless you’re making under $50k a year, the extra $140 a week isn’t going to change your life a whole lot.
Is your dream really that cheap?
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Here’s one more opinion that resonates with the article.
When I first started looking for a job post-high school (so it had to be more than 3 months long), I was faced with two options, from the interviews I had gone to: go to an admin ‘warehouse’ filling in mundane forms and database entries, or go to a mobile marketing / multimedia content company where they paid less, but I got different challenges every day and learned tons – in an industry I was interested in and I am still working in today.
If I had taken the admin job, how would I had the courage to apply to that next well-paid advertising job? And how would they have trusted me with it? And then the next one, where I was referred / recommended? Etc. etc. etc.
Unless your life and survival depends on getting paid a few extra dollars, and especially if you *know* what you’d ideally be doing, go for the job that is closer to your dream path.