2 offers, can’t decide which way to go
I have about 5 years of experience in recruiting. 3 yrs agency and then moved internal to a startup and have been here almost 2 years.
I’ve found myself in a spot where I now have two offers - one is a senior recruiter at another startup (Offer A), and one is a sourcer at a very well known financial institution (offer B). Both companies have a very similar compensation package and benefits package.
Offer A is a company I have been following for a few years now, listed on LinkedIn’s top startups, and I would have loved to work for them if you asked me a year ago. I was stoked when they reached out. However, throughout the process I’ve done some digging and seen a history of low tenure in the recruiting teams and employee reviews saying that their KPIs are insane (think 300-500+ outbound messages a week and 30 interviews). However, I’ve been told that the team I am being hired on is less KPI driven as my searches will focus more on director - executive level talent.
Offer B, the financial institution, is a household name, and looking into the recruiting team there I see long tenures with steady promotions. Previous employees move to similar financial institutions and seem to develop a steady career. I have friends who work there and when I was in agency I focused on recruiting in the financial services space, so I know the workload is lighter than the startup environment I am currently used to and the environment I will potentially be facing if I accept my other offer.
One concern is whether I would be silo’ing myself into the finance industry if I go with offer B. I know the only reason the startup reached out to me is because i currently have startup experience, and as i grow more tenured in my role I have had so many similar cool companies reach out to me presumably because of where I am now. I’m afraid if I move from startup to large enterprise finance, I lose the future opportunity to work for early stage, cool companies.
At the same time, I am so burnt out. I’ve only been doing this 5 years and between agencies and the startup I’m at now, the KPIs, the constant fear I’m going to get fired if I have one bad month is weighing on me to the point I’ve developed depression and anxiety. In a lot of ways I do love recruiting, but I just need a break. And I feel like offer B will give me that work life balance back.
Sorry if this is long, I just wanted to put this out here and see if anyone would weigh in with their own thoughts/experiences, recruiter to recruiter. None of my friends are in this industry and I feel like they don’t truly understand what I mean when I talk about the just how deep the highs and lows of what we do go.