<p>You’d be crazy not to take this. A company who hires you at a much higher salary would be more likely to lay you off when things get tough. You are safer to ride out this economy at a relatively lower salary. Then when times are better, and you’ve proven what you can do, they’ll give you good increases to keep you, or you can change jobs. Chicago is a good solid business community where there will always be lots of opportunities. As others have said, it’s much easier to get a job when you already have a job. Full-time “permanent” employment counts for way more than a patchwork of internships, summer jobs, etc., which are generally temporary and have less impact than “perm.” Lots of new grads don’t have jobs in their specialty, or have truly low-paying jobs, or have no jobs. You are lucky. You’ll have a real job in a great city!</p>
<p>Re: finding a place to live, when you accept the offer, ask them (HR and your new boss) for their recommendations on finding a place to live. They might know of places that have worked for others, or might know of someone who just lost a roommate.</p>
<p>As I recall, my S started his first job in July, as did many of his classmates who had banking jobs. Perhaps this is why you had trouble with OCR. However, all is not lost,you have a job offer, take it, learn as much as you can, work hard and I’m sure you would have more options when the economy picks up. Don’t give up on Wharton’s career office, my S has many friends who found their 2nd and 3rd jobs through that office.</p>
<p>Will join the chorus about getting a roommate. Remember you will also have medical insurance (and associated copays), utilities, cell phone, cable/internet, car insurance should you need wheels, commuting costs if you don’t, dry cleaning, and putting some money in the bank. If your employer offers a 401(k) plan and matches part of your contributions, put in enough to get the maximum match from your employer. It’s instant ROI and starts a nest egg.</p>
<p>Some decisions are a leap of faith. Weigh all the excellent advice you’ve been given here…and go for it. It sure sounds like you know yourself and work hard. The confidence of networking and “marketing” yourself comes with experience and earned self-esteem. Some basic advice that just stands the test of time: It is easier to find a job when you have a job. There is much to be said about “getting your foot in the door.” etc. </p>
<p>It is not uncommon for very capable, intelligent, analytical individuals to spend so much time weighing every possible other option or conceivable outcome, wondering what might be out there that’s “better” that they become stalled and have difficulty making decisions. I would assume you’ve been conducting a mighty job hunt, so you know the market conditions. Don’t be stalled by “what ifs”. Make a decison (IMHO - take this job if it’s of interest) and move forward. Odds are, you’ll do this for a few years - gain some experience…and move on.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Many here have said 50k in Chicago is fine. They are correct but I would add 50k in financial services in Chicago is fine too. Far more important than the city is the type of job you are taking, which you have not given the information on. This is to answer your original question whether you are being gipped.</p></li>
<li><p>Far more important than your first-year salary is a career progression at the same firm in years 2-4 for your positioning for a graduate degree, for pay, for a future job. These are the questions you should ask. Saving $5,000 your first year will feel meaningless in 2013 when you will be worth 200k or 500k, making a huge difference in financing graduate school or living it up like a lot of your profligate colleagues if you make the right choices.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t understand if you have a job offer on paper if you do not know if there is a bonus or not. This is one of the first 2-3 questions to ask and even acceptable to fish for hints on the range.</p></li>
<li><p>Use the 1/3 of gross salary for housing rule- at $50k, do not go above 1388 a month. A good landlord won’t let you anyway.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Don’t live alone. You can get a much nicer place if you share, and it will help you develop skills on the networking front, as well as meeting other people in Chicago.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It isn’t really my ideal job. It’s a financial analyst position, but it’s mostly research and data gathering/presenting. My forte lies in problemsolving/math/calculation/computers/etc, and so this particular job doesn’t really leverage these skills much, but I could be wrong.</p></li>
<li><p>The firm I’m with isn’t massively huge but it isn’t small either – they own properties all over the US (they’re a real estate/REIT firm). I worry that I’ll get pigeonholed and that I won’t be able to find a position that can use my strong suits (which I know can generate a lot of value. At my last internship, I was able to help the trading firm I was with gain a decent sum of money with the things I implemented).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Well, these are better reasons not to take the job than “50k in Chicago”. But you’re short on cash and unemployed, so you have to weigh the chances of finding a job that fits your potential. I don’t think you should expect a first job in a bad economy to fit your skill set perfectly.</p>
<p>Well, over the past 15 years or so there were incredible opportunities to use math skills in connection with real estate finance. But, I agree, it’s going to be a little while before the world has any appetite for real estate derivatives again. Maybe by the time you are 40 . . . .</p>
<p>It’s not that I’m even after real estate – it just happens to be that this place offered a position opening. I just want a fun job that pays well and can make use of my skills (I know they’re out there!), I’m just bad at finding them. I’ve been doing so many things alone for so long.</p>
<p>Max, let’s assume for a minute that you turn the job down.</p>
<p>Then what?</p>
<p>Do you have live prospects in your pipeline which are a better use of your skills, pay more, sound more interesting to you? If not, how long will it take you to get those prospects, and if you haven’t landed one of those other jobs yet what will you do differently or what will have changed that suggests that you could land one of those jobs?</p>
<p>I know you don’t have a family network to advise you- but if you were my kid I’d be suggesting that you try and figure out how long it would take you to get a better offer than the one you have. If your interview record up until now suggests that you are a few weeks away from something better-- well then that’s a consideration for turning down the job. If your record up until now suggests that it could be months until you get another offer-- do you want to be in Chicago working and earning and living your life, or do you want to spend those months not working and not earning and pouring all your energy into finding another job?</p>
<p>Don’t engage in wishful thinking- if this job isn’t for you, you need an actual, tactical plan on the steps you’re going to take to find one you’re more excited about. “I’ll keep looking” is not a plan. Hoping the economy rolls back to 2007 isn’t a plan. And you need to be careful not to start bumping into the January Wharton grads in a couple of weeks, and then the May Wharton grads in a couple of months. All of you will be vying for the same jobs; you’ll have a few more interviews under your belt, but they won’t have to answer the question, “what have you been doing since graduation” since they won’t have graduated yet.</p>
<p>There is a different thread running from a few weeks ago about Ivy league grads who are unemployed and why. I know a couple of these kids- some have turned down jobs in Dayton Ohio or Sarasota Florida because “I can’t see myself living there”-- this from a 22 year old who is living on Mom’s sofa. And I know kids who have turned down jobs paying 28K in DC or 30K in SF since they don’t want to have roommates or have to make the lifestyle trade-offs required to live in those cities on those salaries.</p>
<p>But 50K in Chicago? What am I missing here? When the alternative is continued unemployment in a $%^& economy? And no rich relatives to subsidize the lifestyle?</p>
<p>Max- I remember your earlier posts and life has dealt you a bad hand. You’ve worked hard and now you’re about to see the fruits of your labors. Take the job and don’t look back. Find a couple of roommates already living in a decent but not fancy place. Start banking $20 a week from your paycheck and put the maximum into your retirement account at work. Learn to make lasagna or chili and be the guy who has “dinner parties” once a month instead of going out to bars and restaurants. Find out which days the museums and galleries have free events or wine and cheese parties for young professionals (that’s you.) and when the senior people in your office offer free tickets to the theater or the opera or a benefit at the ballet be the first to raise your hand. When your company sponsors a table at the MS banquet or Lupus gala or Art Institute opening and nobody wants to go, you be the guy to put together a table of all your friends (free food and open bar- what’s not to like?)</p>
<p>With the right attitude and a couple of roommates you will live a fun and interesting and even luxurious lifestyle (at least a couple of times a year) on 50K in Chicago.</p>
<p>Don’t turn your nose up at real estate. Traditionally, it has been the foundation of a lot of wealth, and it has rewarded smart, entrepreneurial people well, largely because (at least until recently) it has been the most leverageable asset category.</p>
<p>I second what JHS said above. I know someone who is a REIT analyst working for a hedge fund and his pay approaches 7 figures. There are a lot of financial firms (IB, PE,HF) who want analysts with field experience and who know how to value RE companies.</p>
<p>Actually, look up Leon Black and Apollo Management, and think of the money he and his associates made from the collapse of Drexel Burnham Lambert in the S&L crisis of the early 80s. And then think about how much money people are going to be making from taking CMOs and other securitized real estate loans off the hands of regulated financial institutions in the next few years.</p>
<p>Thank you for that post, blossom – that was extraordinarily helpful to me and really put things into perspective. Most of my worries have just come from what I’ve heard in the past, which have generally revolved around the notion that what you do when you get out of college tends to put the snowballs into motion, setting a path for what you’ll be doing down the line. That is to say, if you start out with too low an income, you may be shooting yourself in the foot compared to taking the extra time/effort to find something better that’ll give you more room for advancement and opportunity. This current job doesn’t really speak to my skills, but I do understand it’s a poor economy.</p>
<p>It’s just that life has been so hard, and it’s even more discouraging because I’ve got a lot to offer skillwise and it’s just disappointing that I’m still below what the average Wharton grad would be getting (according to the 2009 figures). If I can outperform my peers, shouldn’t I be be paid more? This is the mindset I operate on, but I am finding out the hard way that being shy, quiet, without external support, and under duress really hurts one’s chances. I feel like I need SOMETHING good to happen for once that feels like an adequate ending to all of this.</p>
<p>I am definitely going to be taking the job offer, but I’m just incredibly worried about my future down the line.</p>
<p>Good lord honey. Let me promise you something. You ARE NOT going to be pigeonholed by this. 20 years of the same thing, maybe. Can I hazard a guess here that may be completely off base? You keep referring to having had to do everything by yourself. Is it possible that this leap is bringing up a lot of your emotion around being so unsupported? That somehow you wish someone would just take care of you and lead you by the hand? Like I said, I could be way off base. From what I remember of your situation, you’d be quite justified in these kinds of feelings. But this can be a littler step than it feels like right now. As long as you like the firm culture, you should be OK enough. Do you have any friends or friends of friends in Chicago? I’d worry more about loneliness than job futures at this point. And if you are good at calculations, and are supposed to do research, heck, no one minds if you can add value to research with quantitative methods…</p>
<p>Alumother: I’m sure there’s probably some truth to that, but it’s more the fact that I’ve felt quite alone growing up – no guidance (it’s been very “We don’t care, figure it out”). It makes me feel slightly bitter when I ask a friend what steps he took to get his job, only to hear “Oh, my relative works in such and such etc,” which I’ve heard often. Other friends are constantly talking to their parents and having exchanges about what’s going on/what they’re going to do/constantly getting some form of advice or guidance. And almost everyone had some sort of financial support (even those who had work study were still getting food money from their parents), which helps loads in terms of being able to focus on academics. My personal situation just makes me discouraged because I’ve always done well (2390 SAT, valedictorian, accepted everywhere but Princeton, great grades in some of the harder Wharton courses like Derivatives/Fnce 206, adept with various programs/languages/concepts/math, etc), and yet I feel as if none of that seems to matter when everything else is absent.</p>
<p>I am always second-guessing my actions because I simply have no idea how to go about a lot of this correctly. Money complicates everything tenfold, and I’m just trying to make the best future for myself the best way I know how. However, I do not know everything and do not know how to correctly seek help (I just never did it growing up), hence the dilemma. I’m sure it all comes across as exceptionally bitter/arrogant/jealous, but I can’t help but feel this way. I understand why these feelings are there, and I would even argue that they’re justified – but I don’t want to be bitter forever. I’d rather just know what the right actions are so I can make the right/best choice without second-guessing myself.</p>
<p>And believe me, I worry a lot about loneliness, too. Everything at this point is just a massive worry, haha :P</p>
<p>I think you’re making the right decision in taking the job. It’s been my experience that it’s easier to find a job when you have a job, even if you’re not necessarily looking. Channel your worries about your future into working as hard as you can and being the best at your job that you can be. Good things will come.</p>
<p>You aren’t alone with your frustration and dilemma; I know kids your age, recent graduates of Yale and Colby, who are bartending and waiting tables looking for an opportunity to come along in their fields while also working unpaid internships. They’ve had it tough too as they lost their Dad to a lengthy illness several years ago.</p>
<p>When things get overwhelming, find positives. With a programming background, you may find work on the side that would give you additional income and establish additional contacts. If you’re not good at networking or selling yourself, get involved in a cause that you feel strongly about or have a passion for. You’ll be doing something that makes you feel good about yourself and meeting people with a common interest so the focus is on the cause instead of on you at first. You’d be amazed at the places contacts can come from.</p>
<p>If you’re needing/wanting a roomate to share expenses with, try one of the local colleges in Chicago with grad student programs where grad students may need roomies or talk to your new boss to see if they can offer assistance in that area.</p>
<p>Be a problem solver and look for solutions. You’re well educated and young. Your life is before you to make it what you will; nobody else can do it for you, but you have the tools to be successful. Don’t let your ego get in your way; just focus and work hard.</p>
<p>legendofmax, I think you’re making the right decision regarding this job offer. It’s a great offer in this economy, and two years of experience will look great on your resume.</p>
<p>I thought about you when I read the following article yesterday about the dismal job market for MBA grads. The following excerpt seemed particularly relevant:</p>
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<p>That’s been my question all along: Who’s to say those high-paying financial services jobs will ever come back?</p>
<p>My daughter graduated this past spring with an engineering degree from MIT. Five years ago, she probably would have had at least three high-salary job offers at graduation–with at least one in the financial services industry. This year, however, she had NO job offers. When she finally got a job offer of $50K three months after graduation, she felt like she’d won the lottery! It’s not a job in the financial services industry, but it is instead a real engineering job. My D still has some brilliant fellow-graduates who haven’t found jobs yet.</p>
<p>So try to be happy about your new job (it really is a great offer!), learn as much as you can, and I predict much success in your future!</p>