Bird in the hand has come through! Now to shake the bushes and get those two birds to commit one way or the other!
ETA: Thanks for all the good thoughts. Continued good wishes to everyone!
@Magnetron Is your daughter going into zoo keeping as a profession? Is she wanting to stay with hoof stock?
Yes to both Snowball City, though I was trying to get her into the science end. Given her academic aptitudes, she could do the biochemistry and the statistical modelling better than most, but she much prefers the direct animal care. She has a phone interview Thursday with a place that would be perfect for her, fingers crossed and knocking on wood.
Perhaps after a few years of hands on experience she would like to transition to places like http://www.cbsg.org and http://www.czaw.org/projects. The statistical modeling will be valuable.
Low-ball job offer made! And taken! Thanks, all.
ETA: And ds1 is interviewing tomorrow for a job a 1,000 miles away.
A few pages back (#315) I asked for some fairy dust and four-leaf clovers for my “perpetual runner-up” D. After missing out on a couple opportunities, one of which was a fellowship of sorts at her art school, she was asked to teach a class there next year! (Very part-timey, but pays a bit, and is definitely a resume builder). She has also interviewed for a couple other jobs to make ends meet–one offer, but the location isn’t great. Hoping for offer after good interview on 2nd one.Things are looking up for her. (Also, I hear there may be a marriage proposal coming her way soon 
)
Oh, boy. The not-so-low-ball job has come calling. He could be changing jobs in a matter of weeks!
I also don’t get the millenial job mentality. My D09 graduated from a 5 year program with a masters in education. She taught for one year, hated it, took a fellowship for one year, then did special ed itinerant teaching for 6 months. At least she listened to me about not leaving her last job until she had a new one. She is now working for an educational technology startup as a customer service rep and she loves it. She said to me “Mom, I’m 25 and I’m only on my fourth job since grad school.” I have been a practicing attorney for over 30 years and I’m just on my third job! and I would still be at my second if I hadn’t been downsized… I just don’t get job hopping.
Sometimes, it is forced due to employer going out of business, closing a division, cutting jobs due to poor earnings, etc…
Sometimes, employers force on you. They pay new comers better. It can be the best way to get a raise.
It’s the reality of the market. Employers don’t offer benefits to keep their workforce for the long term. If the kids are young and healthy, keeping health insurance isn’t as important as for us. They will go to where they are happy.
Hope it works out in the end
Great post and agreed whats funny is I see it on CC and in real life, but not where I work. I currently work at a Fortune 25 company and the young people we hire (mostly mech, elec, industrial, engineers) from normal colleges starting out at 60-75k.
They don’t leave usually 5-7 year stints and then maybe you see them branch out to mid level management at a different company.
What else I find amazing is after all of the hype to get in certain colleges I don’t see the pay off in the real world for most normal careers. Companies like P&G, Nestle, GM, Kimberly Clark, Unilever, they pay non degreed workers 18-21/hr+, with good benefits, and 401 granted it is not a glorious job and has no ring to it.
Many degrees imo are borderline worthless. If you go to school for 4 years pay XXX to go to a “reach” school and come out making 35-40k to me that is failure unless you truly LOVE YOU JOB AND KNOW YOU WILL!
Example: Teaching/Social work, but as we see in this thread many teachers hate teaching and don’t teach after getting a degree.
“Sometimes, employers force on you. They pay new comers better. It can be the best way to get a raise.”
There is an official term for that - salary compression. You either fight for a raise or walk.
^^ It happens in a lot of companies. The initial offer may seem good, but the raises are measly. In a good industry, the headhunters will come calling with higher offers. The cycle continues with each new job. Companies bank on employees wanting stability and not job hop for higher salaries. Those who are more daring will do it and it will not hurt their careers, and end up with a higher salary base with each new job, making future offers higher.
S was told by co-workers after 3 years at a position that he’d have to transfer to get a raise and promotion, so he did and got both. He’s pretty happy with the fed govt and has no current plans to transfer. He’s been at the same employer since he started work in 2011, a year after he graduated.
Did I take this thread in a different turn?
Ds2 applied for the “better” job back in January. When the other place interviewed him in April, he dropped by the first place, and I think his stock rose again. He spent hours with the guy with whom he’d be most closely working, including drinks for hours. That guy decided to make another push for ds. When ds got his job offer from the second place two weeks ago he texted the guy and told him. That guy said take it, and I can steal you later. We had no idea that that meant the very next week. Ds will feel horrible about leaving the first place, but, hey, it’s a low-ball job offer; they didn’t pay relocation expenses, and the pay is bad, though the benefits are good. This other job is just too good to pass up.
Ds1 is about to make a job move, too. Likely will get an offer this week. Huge raise, relocation expenses, everything. He wouldn’t be so quick to leave his current employer if it weren’t for the initial low-ball job offer and the absolutely crappy raise that he got last year. He beat every goal put before him, sometimes blowing them out of the water, and the raise he got was insulting. When this new place came looking, he wouldn’t have been so quick to leave if his employer paid him what he was worth. Penny wise, pound foolish. His current employer is going to give him a promotion, but he hasn’t heard the money offer yet. I fear it’s too little too late.
Reporting that son worked very hard,was loyal, dedicated and the fairy dust worked for him. 
Even when a current employer ‘matches’ what outsider has for pay/benefits - sometimes companies have to learn how to treat their people to keep their talent. Sometimes they don’t learn. Turnover has productivity costs too.
I believe in many careers, one has to move around to gain the experiences for promotions and also value/job security. H’s company wouldn’t move him out of his technical area (he applied for other jobs in the company), so he changed companies (went into head of new product development with company known to everyone) - literally a few blocks away within the same research park offices. Later he did hire back to original company (rather than relocate when the job moved away), and he had extra experiences they now recognize and value (he not only knows every job in the company but has the technical excellence) - now he can do any engineering technical job in the company (as well as the knowledge of what has worked and what hasn’t worked in their industry) and they picked him up as a corporate employee. Rather have him travel (and currently his travel schedule has been light) than have two households in two different states because we are close to retiring and don’t want to permanently live in the other places.
When one gets older, the risk/reward on changing jobs may not be favorable for older employees. Young people often a move isn’t as cumbersome as someone that has ‘accrued’ stuff and has other considerations.
Interesting this got bumped up. Ds1 got the job offer yesterday .His current employer is seeing what it can do between the promotion/raise to keep him.
Ds2’s interview is next week. He really is enjoying his current job, but he called a mentor with many years in the industry who basically said that he’d be nuts not to take the new job if it’s offered and that anyone at his current employer who doesn’t get that probably won’t last long in the business. That made him feel a lot better.
Mom’s stomach is in knots about it all, but I know each of them will do fine no matter what happens. Meanwhile, fairy dust to everyone out there still looking!