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T14 grad, median

I'm at a school-funded fellowship. The host organization has offered me full-time position at the end of it. I know I'm lucky to have this offer, but I do not want to stay here.

So I'm torn. I want to be almost ANYWHERE other than here, but having this offer as a backup is nice. There's about 4 months left on my fellowship. My job requires a lot of facetime and is an hour away from my target market, so if I actively look for a job/network (meaning I'll miss work for interviews/coffee/etc.), it will be obvious and they will likely rescind my offer.

My background: not biglaw but same work as biglaw; very high demand for this type of work; skills directly relatable to many positions. however, so far, I've gotten no responses from mass mailing/applying, but have seen slight success through networking. Again, the problem is, networking and gunning for a job is impossible without being obvious that I'm job searching.

Any advice?

One part of me is saying "tell them you're job searching, and if they rescind your offer, fuck it"

However, the other part of me is saying "keep mass mailing and half-ass the job search and hope you get lucky, and keep this offer on the table"

given what you've written, I think you should take their offer and continue passively looking for the next four months (e.g. applying and mass mailing). once you've secured the more permanent position, ramp up the networking again and restart a more active search. remember, accepting their offer doesn't lock you in for an indefinite period of time.

misterjames wrote:given what you've written, I think you should take their offer and continue passively looking for the next four months (e.g. applying and mass mailing). once you've secured the more permanent position, ramp up the networking again and restart a more active search. remember, accepting their offer doesn't lock you in for an indefinite period of time.

It's just highly dickish.

Anonymous User wrote:

misterjames wrote:given what you've written, I think you should take their offer and continue passively looking for the next four months (e.g. applying and mass mailing). once you've secured the more permanent position, ramp up the networking again and restart a more active search. remember, accepting their offer doesn't lock you in for an indefinite period of time.

It's just highly dickish.

Accidental anon above. Happy to call out dickishness without a mask.

SmokeytheBear wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

misterjames wrote:given what you've written, I think you should take their offer and continue passively looking for the next four months (e.g. applying and mass mailing). once you've secured the more permanent position, ramp up the networking again and restart a more active search. remember, accepting their offer doesn't lock you in for an indefinite period of time.

It's just highly dickish.

Accidental anon above. Happy to call out dickishness without a mask.

It's not dickish. OP doesn't owe this organization anything more than doing the job well while employed there. I mean, they got a year's worth of free work out of OP's fellowship, I think they're coming out ahead here.

dixiecupdrinking wrote:

SmokeytheBear wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

misterjames wrote:given what you've written, I think you should take their offer and continue passively looking for the next four months (e.g. applying and mass mailing). once you've secured the more permanent position, ramp up the networking again and restart a more active search. remember, accepting their offer doesn't lock you in for an indefinite period of time.

It's just highly dickish.

Accidental anon above. Happy to call out dickishness without a mask.

It's not dickish. OP doesn't owe this organization anything more than doing the job well while employed there. I mean, they got a year's worth of free work out of OP's fellowship, I think they're coming out ahead here.

What isn't dickish about accepting a full time offer when at the time of acceptance you are (i) mailing it in, (ii) have no desire to be there, and (iii) actively looking for employment elsewhere.

SmokeytheBear wrote:

dixiecupdrinking wrote:

SmokeytheBear wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

misterjames wrote:given what you've written, I think you should take their offer and continue passively looking for the next four months (e.g. applying and mass mailing). once you've secured the more permanent position, ramp up the networking again and restart a more active search. remember, accepting their offer doesn't lock you in for an indefinite period of time.

It's just highly dickish.

Accidental anon above. Happy to call out dickishness without a mask.

It's not dickish. OP doesn't owe this organization anything more than doing the job well while employed there. I mean, they got a year's worth of free work out of OP's fellowship, I think they're coming out ahead here.

What isn't dickish about accepting a full time offer when at the time of acceptance you are (i) mailing it in, (ii) have no desire to be there, and (iii) actively looking for employment elsewhere.

Lol what? I would say most people do not work "with a desire to be there". There is nothing remotely weird about looking for employment elsewhere. There are pros to OP being employed vs. unemployed while he searches for his next step, it's as simple as that.

SmokeytheBear wrote:

dixiecupdrinking wrote:

SmokeytheBear wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

misterjames wrote:given what you've written, I think you should take their offer and continue passively looking for the next four months (e.g. applying and mass mailing). once you've secured the more permanent position, ramp up the networking again and restart a more active search. remember, accepting their offer doesn't lock you in for an indefinite period of time.

It's just highly dickish.

Accidental anon above. Happy to call out dickishness without a mask.

It's not dickish. OP doesn't owe this organization anything more than doing the job well while employed there. I mean, they got a year's worth of free work out of OP's fellowship, I think they're coming out ahead here.

What isn't dickish about accepting a full time offer when at the time of acceptance you are (i) mailing it in, (ii) have no desire to be there, and (iii) actively looking for employment elsewhere.

No one said anything about mailing it in. Do a good job while you're there, leave when you find something better. It's not complicated.

dixiecupdrinking wrote:

SmokeytheBear wrote:

dixiecupdrinking wrote:

SmokeytheBear wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

misterjames wrote:given what you've written, I think you should take their offer and continue passively looking for the next four months (e.g. applying and mass mailing). once you've secured the more permanent position, ramp up the networking again and restart a more active search. remember, accepting their offer doesn't lock you in for an indefinite period of time.

It's just highly dickish.

Accidental anon above. Happy to call out dickishness without a mask.

It's not dickish. OP doesn't owe this organization anything more than doing the job well while employed there. I mean, they got a year's worth of free work out of OP's fellowship, I think they're coming out ahead here.

What isn't dickish about accepting a full time offer when at the time of acceptance you are (i) mailing it in, (ii) have no desire to be there, and (iii) actively looking for employment elsewhere.

No one said anything about mailing it in. Do a good job while you're there, leave when you find something better. It's not complicated.

I also think it's bad. It's telling the organization you plan to stay there and that it should stop looking to fill that position when in fact you might very well find another job by the time your fellowship ends. This then leaves the organization in a bad spot of having to hire someone last minute. That's like accepting multiple offers at OCI during law school to preserve your spots while you take 2L year to figure out which firm you like the most and which firms you'll drop by the time 2L summer starts.

I'm always surprised when people think it's rude to look for other positions while currently in another, or to accept a less than ideal position to pay bills. OP, I think you may be over thinking this. I think you should continue doing good work, accept the position and keep up a relatively passive job search. Sure, if you're getting interviews monthly, maybe someone will notice. If you play it well, they still may not for several months. Most likely this won't be an issue and no one will know you're looking, especially if you play it well.

There's no shame in this and it's not dickish. They company/organization would let you go if they had to.

Op is assuming that he will be getting a ton of action on his job search. Just apply, and deal with your schedule then instead of believing you will be at interviews every other day. Plus, a bird in hand...

If you have no bites at all or other interviews lined up that might return an offer quickly, then you should probably accept the offer from your current org. Do your job well while you're there, and spend your free time looking for other employment.

LurkerTurnedMember wrote: I also think it's bad. It's telling the organization you plan to stay there and that it should stop looking to fill that position when in fact you might very well find another job by the time your fellowship ends. This then leaves the organization in a bad spot of having to hire someone last minute.

What you're describing is the consequence of at-will employment. If the organization cared about this issue, they could give OP an employment contract. I'm sure they didn't because they want to be able to fire OP or withdraw their offer if circumstances change.

Employers just love it when employees construct some unilateral moral imperative of loyalty because it keeps them from having to do anything for you. If they valued loyalty they would pay it in kind.

SmokeytheBear wrote:

dixiecupdrinking wrote:

SmokeytheBear wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

misterjames wrote:given what you've written, I think you should take their offer and continue passively looking for the next four months (e.g. applying and mass mailing). once you've secured the more permanent position, ramp up the networking again and restart a more active search. remember, accepting their offer doesn't lock you in for an indefinite period of time.

It's just highly dickish.

Accidental anon above. Happy to call out dickishness without a mask.

It's not dickish. OP doesn't owe this organization anything more than doing the job well while employed there. I mean, they got a year's worth of free work out of OP's fellowship, I think they're coming out ahead here.

What isn't dickish about accepting a full time offer when at the time of acceptance you are (i) mailing it in, (ii) have no desire to be there, and (iii) actively looking for employment elsewhere.

Who cares if it's a dick move? Plenty of people accept jobs for the money, knowing they are going to look for something better pretty quickly. This is typical, especially after 08/09. This whole attitude is sort of perverse to me, honor the employer and screw the employee? Just weird to see people actively be against their own leverage as employees to be able to leave whenever the hell they want, but I guess nothing really surprises me anymore.

OP, accept the offer, do good work for a six months while passively networking and applying. I wouldn't accept and then start scheduling interviews right away, cause that looks bad if they notice you are taking off a lot, but no reason to not take a paying job while you look for something better, they have already gotten months of free work out of you. Also, if the job is as sought after as you say, it might actually be a good idea to stick around for a year or two and gain skills that make a jump to big law possible.