I need professional advice from some of the posters that have more experience than I do. I need to give you the background so that you can properly advise me; so bear with me. Ok, so I’m 26 and just recently resigned from the company that I have 3 years of tenure. My last day was August 31, so I’ve been unemployed for over a month now. The resignation backstory is another long story so I’ll spare the details for now, unless someone asks but I did leave the company on good terms and they’ve made it known to me that if and when I’m ready they’ll have a position for me. So here’s my situation, I’m working with a staffing agency/recruiter in order to find a new position. She’s identified a few opportunities and one in particular is ready to make me an offer but not exactly what I was looking for. They feel that I do not have enough industry specific experience (auditing) so they want to bring me in as an intern at $20/hr to test my abilities. They’ve also stated that if they don’t find someone to fill their staff need and they are happy with my progress they could hire me to fill that vacancy in less than a few months. I’m interested in the position and I’m positive that if I get in the door they would eventually offer me the staff role; but they travel Monday – Friday for 3 weeks out of every month. The problem with that is that my mother recently finished chemotherapy and is now undergoing radiation. I live at home and it helps out that I’m able to be around since my dad travels a lot due to work. The other dilemma that I’m faced with is that my heart is set on a position with a government contractor (that will go unnamed) that I didn’t locate through the staffing agency. I had a preliminary interview / phone screen this past Friday for the manager to gauge my interest. She said she is going to bring me in for an interview either this week or early next week but her supervisor is attending training all this week so it’s likely going to be next week at the earliest. This is the position that I want but I can’t share this information with the staffing agency (at least I don’t think I can or should) and I’m going to meet with the other company this Thursday at which time I expect them to offer me the internship. What should I do? I don’t want to reject the internship offer but I don’t want to accept without knowing what my chances are with the government contractor. My funds are beginning to run low and my pops is putting a lot of pressure on me cause the household income is lower than before. Any advice would be appreciated and welcome. Sorry about the long story guys.
My advice 1. If you are not at an intern level don't take an intern job unless it is an industry you know nothing about. 2. Don't feel you owe the contract agency anything. You are a commodity to them. Some are different but most treat you as a cog 3. If it is not in writing don't trust anything said to you. 4. What is the story.
BigSherv, 1. I’ve got 3 years of audit experience so I’m with you on this but I had a great meeting with one of the managers and I could tell that he is looking for a means to get me in the door since my auditing experience is not specific to their industry. 2. Agreed, but this one has been very helpful and I don’t want to leave her high and dry but at the end of the day I got to do the best for me. 3. 100% agreed 4. Long story is my old company had a contractor fail a drug test at a client’s facility. He test positive for cocaine. Anyways, my CEO overreacts since it’s our # 1 client and decides to mandate a companywide urine and hair analysis. Just my luck, I had just come back from a bachelor party in Vegas 1 month prior which involved mar1juana smoking. I hadn’t smoked at all in 2011 but during this party so I’m confident I’d pass the piss test but not so much that I would pass the urine test. I approach my COO and share with him the situation and the best they could do for me was allow me to resign and come back once I’m ready to pass the test. They are worried that a double standard would cause them problems if someone of less importance had a similar situation and they didn’t afford them the same treatment as me. So I had to rescind my confession and resign.
do what's best for you. It's their job to be nice and they will leave you high and dry if they have a better prospect
On that note, would it be acceptable for me to accept the offer and still pursue the gov’t contractor position? And leave if I’m offered the gov’t contractor position? That’s what I’m really hung up on.
If you have the right priorities, caretaking your mom should trump any stupid job. Surprised you really have to ask this!
