A fifth-year PhD student asks—

When I’m starting my job search, how do I prioritize all the different factors that matter to me? I’m worried if I am too picky, I’m not going to find anything. For example, what if I find a job that is really good professionally but isn’t located somewhere I want to live. How do I balance those preferences?

This is super hard! It is very unlikely to find a job that is a perfect fit for all of your preferences as your first job after graduating (but don’t worry, a person’s job satisfaction tends to go up over time as they advance in their career). I would generally recommend taking a phased approach. First, identify your absolute dealbreakers (are there locations you truly cannot consider, is there a minimum salary required to meet your financial obligations, etc.?). Don’t look at any job options that don’t satisfy those metrics. Then consider the remaining options in your decision making. I’ve done plenty of job searching that started with google maps, because of a strict location preference! You’ll also want to consider how long you can afford for your job search to last, in thinking about how many criteria you try to satisfy at once. I’ve also done plenty of job searching with strict criteria that had to loosen up over time.

Many people end up struggling to prioritize certain things that we are socially conditioned to deprioritize or ignore. A lot of us are surrounded by messaging that we shouldn’t care as much about salary as scientific rigor, or care as much about location as institutional prestige. However, for nearly everyone, any job you decide to take has a real opportunity cost. Doing job A means not getting the benefits of job B, and it is totally normal to be disappointed by that. My point of view is—since you are unlikely to find a job that perfectly meets all your criteria, you are likely to feel some regret over any choice, at some point. Regret is not a signal that you chose wrong! So, you should go ahead and choose what you think will make you happiest, regardless of social messaging about what ‘should’ be more important for your career.

Finally, your priorities are going to change over time, usually in unpredictable ways. Job security, for example, has come up in conversations at our office as a top value more than ever this year (for somewhat obvious national-news-related reasons). As your priorities evolve, you can always start a new job search for a position that better reflects what matters to you most at that time.

-David Blancha, Assistant Director, Career Development Team for Researchers