Thursday, July 10, 2008

Considerations

So I have now had two job interviews for the position I blogged about last week. This job is at an organization about whose mission I am extremely passionate. It would allow me to provide support to grieving family members and would also give me the opportunity to create my own projects based on my interests. The benefits are great, and the team I would work for seems wonderful.

A drawback to this position is that all of the support that I would be providing would be over the phone. It is also a position that does not require a masters degree, and therefore as much as it would be challenging on some levels (especially if I could create my own projects), it might not be challenging enough or different enough from past jobs and experiences for me to feel like it is an upward step rather than a sideways step professionally.

I keep going over and over this in my head, and I can't tell if I'm trying to talk myself out of the position or into it. The truth is that I was really excited about this position when I saw it posted online. In fact, was the first position I had seen that got me excited since not getting the fellowship. My excitement decreased a bit after my initial phone screening interview when I was told that the position was all phone support, but I still wanted to interview. Since then, I have found an equal number of positive aspects to the job (great supervisor and coworkers, mission about which I'm passionate, interesting job, starts at the right time, good benefits) and negative (lack of other MSWs means lack of on-site social work support and potentially lack of supervision, all phone support means no face-to-face interactions, perhaps not making the most of my new degree) and am just not sure what to do if I get offered the job.

In speaking with a friend last night, she reminded me that if it doesn't feel right, then it probably isn't right and that I need to trust my gut. But my gut seems to be rather confused about how it's feeling, so what do I do? Do I take this job, knowing it's in a field I'm excited about and doing work with a population I'd like to be working with, even though the work isn't exactly the kind of work I want to be doing? Do I pass it up, and then hope that there's a better fit in the future, knowing that there's a good chance that I might end up working further outside my field of interest due to lack of job opportunities doing what I want to do? Is there even a

3 comments:

Melissa said...

The best advice I ever got in job hunting was that you can't reject a job that you don't have.

When you get the offer in hand, I think your gut will suddenly enunciate a little better and you'll have your answer. It obviously won't mean that all ambivalence is resolved but the "right" answer might decide to show up a little more clearly.

Anonymous said...

What sort of opportunities are there within the organization? And how will this opportunity connect you with other opportunity? If everything is a stepping stone, could this put you in touch with future opportunities...or would this be a dead end? Just things to think about. xo. EFS.

Peter said...

Screw it. Just sit on the couch and eat bon-bons all day. (Yeah, I know that's not as helpful as the other advice, but that's all I got right now.)