u/Immediate-Lab961

I have been working in grey industry as junior seo specialist for four months plus. I have been only focusing on onpage seo and not even black hat seo.

My boss said I can learn advanced SEO on my own time and only ask questions when I get stuck—should I be looking for a new job? I've been asking for support to learn technical and off-page SEO, but my manager told me to figure it out independently without work-hour guidance, and only if I have questions I can ask someone there. However, I am worried that I can’t have the chance to practically do them. Is this a standard expectation, or a sign I should move on?

I am currently in a dilemma: whether to continue in my current black-hat SEO job in a small agency or join a big, established company in a different digital marketing role. I am currently not satisfied working at a small agency as a junior black-hat SEO. I know black hat, especially in igaming, can earn a lot once you've reached a certain level. However, my toxic agency wants us to outperform by overworking and OT, while I have no OT pay, with a pay of less than RM4k (which is not aligned with labor law in my country). Recently, they invited a consultant, whom they named "SEO king" behind the scenes, because he currently successfully ranks 918kiss and mega888 (as I heard). Because this so-called consultant has a full-time job, and because he is so great, the manager wants to accommodate his time fully for the consultant to access us, seeing how we can improve, and possibly train us. And this consultant will only join us as a partner at the end of the year.

So how do we accommodate his time? We have to work/meet at night for a certain period of time (unfixed) weekly, and then we may need to work during public holidays. Previously, not long ago, I by chance made myself sound like I know very well about labor rights, and I am able to talk about it transparently. I believe it is because of this that they remembered to mention allowing us to leave work earlier if we have to work at night on the day. And if we are working on a public holiday, we will get replacement leave on another day. (Last time they did not do this, and the leader asked me to get training from him after working hours, such a big change huh). I tried really hard to protect my rights and to block myself from their empty promises, and sometimes I get tired and drained from doing this.

I know changing jobs now is a good time, as many job vacancies are open these days. But I can't seem to find another good agency that offers the same position. Not to mention, I wonder if the igaming industry is always like my current agency culture, or even for the whole digital marketing industry. So I thought finding some big established companies might reduce the circumstances that happened in my current agency. I have no idea, and I need some suggestions and real insights. At the same time, I know changing jobs towards the white industry, and then a different role means lower salary pay for now and even bigger differences in the future. I suffer now, but I am afraid to get into the same scenarios even if I've changed roles and companies. Someone please give your genuine advices, would really appreciate it.