need some thoughts as i am approaching the next stage of my career and may have to answer a few hard questions in the next few weeks...
i currently work for a global fortune 500 investment bank. i was recently promoted last year but because all the banks have been in trouble with litigation the last few years, pay has been pretty stagnant. i got a mild pay rise to offset the 3 years of pay freeze, and because it is IB, the comp structure is very heavy bonus based (~30%)... like everywhere else, we are being asked to do more with less... the upside to all this is that i have unlim sick time, 5wks vacay at my disposal every year and loads of work from home flexibility because my boss is not local... (this is a double edged sword because now it is easy to be lazy when it comes to commuting into an office)... the flexibility helps because now that my daughter is born, I am able to spend a lot of time with her... the job in itself is never the same thing... i don't hate my job, and there are plenty of opportunity to move around, but i know that the industry is getting harder and harder.. i could go to another IB and probably jump around for the rest of my career but it seems to get harder and harder so i don't see it working long term for me... i don't see myself getting to the next level here, since it will be close to impossible...
i have been looking over the last few months but none of those interviews materialized... my last interview was with a private company... they are in a completely different industry (healthcare)... and i just had my final with the CFO last week... all feedback is positive and looks like an offer may be coming... the role in itself sounds interesting with the potential opportunity to take over my manager's role in a year reporting directly into the CFO... i'm not counting on this but because it is a smaller firm the CFO likes to move people around where he sees the need.... so in itself it will be a lot of work and long hours, i am not normally afraid of long hours, but now it's different with a kid at home... also because it is private, any package that is offered to me will be flat to only a slight increase... the weighting between base and bonus will change (more base here) but total comp will only be a $5-10k increase... this will get offset by less vacation time, so for me its almost net equal... i'm not sure how to quantify the sacrifice for time spend with family?
so here are my concerns... since my daughter is still young, do i make the leap now to get into an industry at almost a lateral level (paywise?) since healthcare is big in NJ, that can potentially open more doors down the line??? this also allows me to tough it out now so that when my daughter gets a few years old, i would of had a few years in the company to build some flex into my schedule...
for those of you that have gone big corporate to smaller firms or startup, did you like the environment or were you bored? would you make the move for even pay?
i currently work for a global fortune 500 investment bank. i was recently promoted last year but because all the banks have been in trouble with litigation the last few years, pay has been pretty stagnant. i got a mild pay rise to offset the 3 years of pay freeze, and because it is IB, the comp structure is very heavy bonus based (~30%)... like everywhere else, we are being asked to do more with less... the upside to all this is that i have unlim sick time, 5wks vacay at my disposal every year and loads of work from home flexibility because my boss is not local... (this is a double edged sword because now it is easy to be lazy when it comes to commuting into an office)... the flexibility helps because now that my daughter is born, I am able to spend a lot of time with her... the job in itself is never the same thing... i don't hate my job, and there are plenty of opportunity to move around, but i know that the industry is getting harder and harder.. i could go to another IB and probably jump around for the rest of my career but it seems to get harder and harder so i don't see it working long term for me... i don't see myself getting to the next level here, since it will be close to impossible...
i have been looking over the last few months but none of those interviews materialized... my last interview was with a private company... they are in a completely different industry (healthcare)... and i just had my final with the CFO last week... all feedback is positive and looks like an offer may be coming... the role in itself sounds interesting with the potential opportunity to take over my manager's role in a year reporting directly into the CFO... i'm not counting on this but because it is a smaller firm the CFO likes to move people around where he sees the need.... so in itself it will be a lot of work and long hours, i am not normally afraid of long hours, but now it's different with a kid at home... also because it is private, any package that is offered to me will be flat to only a slight increase... the weighting between base and bonus will change (more base here) but total comp will only be a $5-10k increase... this will get offset by less vacation time, so for me its almost net equal... i'm not sure how to quantify the sacrifice for time spend with family?
so here are my concerns... since my daughter is still young, do i make the leap now to get into an industry at almost a lateral level (paywise?) since healthcare is big in NJ, that can potentially open more doors down the line??? this also allows me to tough it out now so that when my daughter gets a few years old, i would of had a few years in the company to build some flex into my schedule...
for those of you that have gone big corporate to smaller firms or startup, did you like the environment or were you bored? would you make the move for even pay?