You’ve polished your resume, applied to jobs, went on interviews, and now got job offers. Now the question is, how do you choose between two jobs? In this article, we’ll talk about how you can effectively choose between two jobs that you’ve been offered.
Table of Contents
1. Consider the salary
This is obviously important. You need to consider how much you’d be compensated for your skills and time.
It’d be easy if this is the only thing you should look for. You’d choose the job that has the highest pay. However, it’s not so simple. Let’s look at other factors that you should consider when choosing between two jobs.
2. Consider any bonuses
Some jobs have bonuses given out. You can ask about how much bonus there’ll be. You should also find out how hard it is to receive the bonuses.
For instance, something you can ask during the interview is, “what percentage of workers receive a bonus and for how much?”.
If they’re transparent they’d tell you in a very clear way without jumping around.
They’d say something like “50% of our employees get an extra $2,000 in January for their work last year but another 10% get an extra $3,000. If you’re in the top 60th percentile, you can get a sizable bonus. The rest of the 40% get $500 in compensation”.
Some of you won’t feel comfortable asking about bonuses during the job interview and that’s fine. You can search on Glassdoor to see if the employees who worked there mention any bonuses in their reviews.
You should also access your own skill level and how confident you are that you will get the bonus. A bonus is never a guarantee (unless they say so) so use the base salary as your primary consideration when thinking about salary compensation.
3. Consider job benefits
Jobs typically have benefits like the following:
- Vacation days
- Company car
- Health insurance
- Tuition reimbursement
- Gas allowance
- Work from home opportunities
- Take your pet to workday
- Free Taco Tuesday
- Casual dress code
You’ll want to discuss job benefits with your interviewers to see if there’s anything particularly good that you should take heed of. Usually, if there is something that is a huge plus, they’d tell you. After all, they want to attract good workers to their company.
It may be tempting to pick the company that offers free unlimited ice cream at work but ultimately, is unlimited ice cream worth the extra 30 minutes commute? This brings us to the next point.
4. Consider the distance
Think about how far you’ll have to travel. If you earn $1000 more at one job but have to commute an extra hour each day to get there, would it be worth it?
You’ll have to factor in how much each hour of your life is worth and what you pay for gas for each hour of driving.
If all else is considered, and you determined that driving the extra minutes to work for some extra compensation is worth it, then let’s consider the next point.
5. Consider learning opportunities
Will you be learning anything new at your new job? Some jobs are easy to do but it doesn’t offer you any learning opportunities. Learning opportunities can help you create new things to add to your resume which can help you land an even better job next time.
6. Consider past employees’ reviews
Go to Glassdoor and see the reviews for the role you’ll be hired to do. If you don’t find any, just read the review for the company.
Are past employees happy with the job? What are they saying about the management, coworkers, compensations, work hours, etc? Read the worst ratings and the best ratings as well as some in-between.
If you can visit the company in person when you do your interview, you should also take a quick look at the vibe of the place. Are people happy? Are people smiling? Or do they look miserable and stressed out?
7. Consider chances of upward mobility
You want to check out how easy it is for you to move up the rank at your new job. Is it easy to get promoted? Or are employees stuck at the same job forever?
Some jobs would talk about chances for you to move up the corporate ladder and how fast you can do so. You’ll want to pay attention to that during your interview. They may also talk about how much more you’d get paid for each role on the ladder.
If you’re planning on switching companies every 1–2 years maybe this factor won’t be as important to you but if you’re planning on staying at the same company for the foreseeable future, you want to see how much potential growth you could achieve.
8. Consider company culture
The culture of the company is the overall function and flow of the company. Is management effective? Or are they patronizing and condescending while not allowing you room to grow? Do they listen to your suggestion? Do they give you feedback? Are people strictly monitored? What is the hierarchical structure of the workplace?
You may be able to get a sense of the company culture by looking at their website and how they interact with each other at the workplace.
9. Consider who you’ll work under
Bad management can make the work experience hard to bear. If you can get a chance to talk to the manager you can use it to help you decide which job to choose.
Trust your intuition. If you sense that your boss is someone you won’t get along with then it’s best to steer clear. Of course, if you are only offered one job, you have no choice but to accept since you may need the money.
You can also do some light stalking on LinkedIn and their social media. See how they talk and how they interact with other people at their job.
10. Consider who you’ll work with
Take a look at the people you’ll be spending 8 hours a day around. If you see a mortal enemy at the job you were offered a place in, think about what you’re willing to tolerate. Maybe it’s best not to accept that job offer.
If you have no mortal enemy at the place you’ll be working in, it’s also good to connect with employees already working at the job and see how friendly they are on average. I know many of you won’t feel comfortable reaching out to potential coworkers before you accept the job offer but it can offer you important insights.
If you don’t want to reach out to your potential coworkers, you can always stalk them slightly on social media. go to Linkedin and see which employees are working there (not all employees would connect their LinkedIn to the company’s LinkedIn profile page). You can find out their names, search them up on Instagram, take a look at their LinkedIn, etc.
Can you choose another job if you already accepted a job offer?
Sometimes the timing can be a bit off and you may be offered a job when you just accepted one.
Different people would tell you different things.
Personally, I would choose to accept another job if I like the other job better. I’ll give them notice as soon as possible and jump ship. You’re merely a tool to the company you work for, if they find someone else they like better, they won’t hesitate to fire you even if you have already worked there for the last 40 years.
Company loyalty means nothing. It has never meant anything. You can avoid taking any vacation day and work there your whole life but you’re ultimately still just a tool. They care about profit more than you as a person.
Let me be clear. The goal of any company is to make money and keep it going. If it means firing their loyal hardworking employee to get fresh blood with fresh knowledge and skills, they would. You are replaceable.
I’ve heard of someone who got fired after 40 years of service as a programmer. He then decided to start his own company offering a web development service and got sued by his former company because when he signed the contract 40 years ago, he didn’t read the fine print which said that he cannot start a competing company. It is absurd. How else are you going to utilize the skills you used 40 years to cultivate? I don’t know if this is still legal but all I’m saying is that if the other job is better, go ahead and jump, your loyalty means nothing in the corporate world.
How soon should you accept a job offer?
Requesting 2 to 3 days or 48 to 72 hours to consider accepting the job offer is totally reasonable.
You don’t want to delay so long that you risk someone else taking up the offer before you do.
Companies may send out several job offers and it may be whoever the first 3 accept the job offer that gets the job. So that’s something to keep in mind.
Final thought
At the end of the day, you should go with your intuition about which job to accept. You learn something at each job. It’s pretty hard to go wrong with either choice.
You will find something you dislike at each job as well so if you do end up quitting one job just know that it may not be any better at another job.
You don’t have the foresight to see which job would be the best for you so you can only do your best to estimate. Don’t give yourself a hard time if you ended up choosing the wrong job. 85% of people don’t like their job after all.
Good luck!
