The company I’ve been working for as a contractor for the past 10 months, opened up a full time job for my position. After a few months of waiting for the job to post, a round of interviews, and another 2 weeks for them to make a decision, they offered me the job. In the mean time, I told my current employer about the new job, and they made me a counter off with a pretty big promotion and a nice raise. It was a fantastic position I’d never been in before.

The job I had before was with a small company (~20 employees), and was still a pretty young consulting company. The new offer came from one of the largest businesses in the world (~100,000 employees), a major oil company. The consulting company offered me a project manager role, a nice promotion with lots more responsibility, where as the oil company offered me a data analyst position, which is basically what I’ve been doing for the last year. The salaries were comparable, so how was I going to decide??

I decided to go with the big oil company. Ultimately, it came down to the benefits, and potential career growth.

The project manager role would have been a fantastic promotion, but there wouldn’t have been much room to grow after that. At the oil company, I may have less responsibility at first, but two years down the line, my options are almost limitless. They have opportunities on 6 different continents, in just every aspect of business. I know people who work there now that have taken 2-3 year assignments in remote parts of Alaska, the middle east, and all over Europe. I’m working in the Environmental department now, but I could easily transfer to a process control group, health and safety, or any number of different departments.

As for benefits, I had to make a spreadsheet listing all the benefits and do a side by side comparison. The big oil company had a huge advantage when you looked at the standard medical and retirement benefits. They matched 7% of the 401k contributions (vs. 3%), they’re about $100 cheaper per month for health and dental insurance, and, amazingly, they have a pension plan. They use a strange formula to calculate contributions, but for my salary and age, I would be getting over $4,000 per year, free. Of course I couldn’t touch it for 40 years, and it doesn’t vest for 5 years, but thinking long term, that’s a huge advantage.

There were also some fringe benefits I had to examine. For example, as a consultant, I’d get to work from home 3-4 days per week. That would save me about $200 per month on gas and car expenses. The consulting company also pays for my telephone and internet connection, another $70 or so a month. On the other side, the oil company has a 9/80 work schedule, which means I’d work 80 hours every 9 days, which in other words, I’d have every other Friday off. They’re also flexible with the day off, so if you time them around holidays, you can easily get 4 day weekends pretty routinely. The other benefit of the 9/80 schedule, is that my girlfriend works a 4/10 schedule, so she gets every Friday off, and I would definitely spend more time with her.

The biggest factor, which trumps everything above, is that the oil company will pay for my MBA. Specifically, they will pay 90% of tuition, books, fees, etc, with no maximum. That means if I decide to go to either of my top choices, Pepperdine ($60,000) or UCLA ($80,000), I would only have to pay $6,000 or $8,000. That’s a huge advantage in my book.

So there you have it. I gave both opportunities a chance, but when I calculated everything out, the choice became pretty obvious. Hopefully this will give other people an idea of what things to look for when they’re deciding between jobs. I have another week and a half at my old job, and then I’ll start at the big oil company the first week of July. Wish me luck! Our online pharmacy is the perfect resource for people to get their drugs without any hassles or awkwardness. buy cialis We work hard to make sure you save money every time you shop with us. buy levitrabuy soma At our online store, you pay less and get more. buy viagra