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Decision Making Career Planning Motivation

I have job offers for similar positions from two very different companies. One is a large and well-established firm that offers a career path, stability, training, and great benefits. The other is not quite a start-up, but it is less structured, less organized, and yet offers more variety, more challenge, more potential opportunity, and more risk. I keep changing my mind, and I don't know which one to take. Do you have any suggestions?



This is a very individual decision, and you are the very individual to make it. The fact that you are stuck is not uncommon for people in this type of situation.

In order to get yourself unstuck, there are three key places to look. One is the well-established company, the second is the quasi-startup company, and the third is in the mirror. In terms of the companies, try to spend more time at each. In these follow-up visits, try to talk to a good number of people, particularly those with whom you would be working.

You also have to look deeply into yourself. One approach is to try to list the key components of your most satisfying and personally rewarding previous work experiences. In many respects, this listing will help spell out some of your key work motivators. The next step is to match up these motivators with what you have learned from your follow-up visits to the two companies.

It may also help to imagine yourself getting up at the crack of dawn a month from now and heading to a job at each of these companies. If you get a tinge of queasiness about one, and easiness about the other, something deep within you is sending an important message.



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