career dilemmas.

I am an idiot. I went to sleep at 6pm-ish and then woke up at 9, so of course it's almost 2am and I'm still up and cooking dinner for myself. Complete idiot. Anyway, it's been a loooong day. I'm still recovering from this week's event and our biggest event of the year is next week. So not looking forward to it - I mean, it'll be fun and I'll probably get to check out some hot developers, but it's going to be a lot of manual labor. That part won't be fun.

I've been thinking a lot about my career choices and what my next move is. I have three options right now, best case scenario (since for all I know the two jobs I'm interested in might hate me). I can stay in my current event planner role, I can look into the University Programs job, or I can look at the Program Manager role. I'm just not really sure what I want. There are so many factors at play. I want an exciting job. I love that I get to travel and do really awesome shit at an amazing company. I like that my job is "cool," even though it's a lot less glamorous than people think. I kind of want to keep a lot of aspects of the role - the travel, planning parties, etc. I also want to be promoted. I hate that I've been so stagnant at work with my growth. Taking the events job set me back in that way and while I was okay with it 18 months ago, now I'm really not so sure that I am. I also want a job where I think I can excel and do well. I want to know that I can be close to the best at something. Beyond that, I want to feel passionate about my work.

It's been a tough period of soul-searching for me and I'm still not sure where I net out on everything. Each job has pros and cons and I don't know which direction I should go in. I want to try and think more long-term as I strategize my next move. I'm not sure I want to be an event planner forever. I mean, there's a part of me that would like to set up my own operation and have more freedom and creativity and also the ability to do non-corporate events. Maybe if I was in that space, I'd be happier. In that case, sticking with my current job is the way to go, as I'd gain more knowledge and understanding of the industry and could build a reputation. The recruiting job sounds amazing - I'd still get to travel and I'd be doing diversity recruiting, which as a black/Puerto Rican woman working at a tech company is super important to me. However, the growth potential and the promotion opportunities might be limited. So that's an issue. I think I'm ultimately going to pass on the program manager role. I just know it won't be enough for me. It'll be taking a step back, like how I felt on my old team. While there's the chance for promotion within that role, I just don't think going back to the 9-5 desk job is really going to work for me.

Oh well, at least one decision has been made. I'm still incredibly interested in the recruiting role and after talking to Vest, I feel better about the promotion issue. So now I wait to hear if they are interested in speaking with me. In the meantime, I have plenty of work to keep me busy =)