When I was still in the early stages of my first start-up, in autumn 2006, and working full-time at my consulting job, I was also interviewing with various banks. Through this excellent recruitment agent, I got a series of interviews at Lehman Brothers which ultimately culminated in them basically creating a job for me in their Front Office product management team and offering it to me.
This was a very good banking job. Front-office based, plenty of exposure to all parts of the bank, creative, intense, and well paid. I hesitated, because on the one hand I had committed into the business I was starting (to the tune of several thousand pounds, and, more importantly, to a close friend...), and on the other hand this was an excellent career opportunity from the "corporate career" point of view.
I remember discussing this with my girlfriend at the time. Being very pragmatic, she resolved the question: "Most people," she said, "hope their whole life that they'll be able to start a business. You have the opportunity to do it now, to realise something that for most people remains just a dream. You may never get that opportunity again... but the Lehman job will still be there in a year or two if you decide that start-ups are not for you."
Well, she was wrong about the Lehman job. I'm going to have to accept that I will never get a job there now.
I don't know about that. I know I've given up on relationships in the past based on superficial reasons only to realize how important certain factors like the one above mattered.
If you took the Lehman job, by now you'd have to accept the fact that you would probably never get the chance to start a business again.
That would drive me nuts because I've always wanted to start my own business and I don't really like working for others. For (most) other people, I'm sure they'd rather have a steady source of income.
That's funny. I worked at that company for a period of time, and left a couple years before the crash to start my own company. It has done well, but at the time I assumed the startup route was much riskier.
When I was still in the early stages of my first start-up, in autumn 2006, and working full-time at my consulting job, I was also interviewing with various banks. Through this excellent recruitment agent, I got a series of interviews at Lehman Brothers which ultimately culminated in them basically creating a job for me in their Front Office product management team and offering it to me.
This was a very good banking job. Front-office based, plenty of exposure to all parts of the bank, creative, intense, and well paid. I hesitated, because on the one hand I had committed into the business I was starting (to the tune of several thousand pounds, and, more importantly, to a close friend...), and on the other hand this was an excellent career opportunity from the "corporate career" point of view.
I remember discussing this with my girlfriend at the time. Being very pragmatic, she resolved the question: "Most people," she said, "hope their whole life that they'll be able to start a business. You have the opportunity to do it now, to realise something that for most people remains just a dream. You may never get that opportunity again... but the Lehman job will still be there in a year or two if you decide that start-ups are not for you."
Well, she was wrong about the Lehman job. I'm going to have to accept that I will never get a job there now.