I’ll start by saying that I’ve never been out of education, and only ever had part time jobs until now. I’m in the final year of my PhD and been offered an 18 month postdoc for when I finish (the timing suits me).
Here’s the issue: me and my partner want to get a house within the next year (she works full time), and I don’t know how difficult it would be to get a mortgage with me on a fixed term contract. I don’t want to turn down the postdoc offer, but I would also much, much rather have a permanent role somewhere. I told myself I didn’t really want to go into academia, but this postdoc just interests me because of 1) convenient location, 2) interesting topic related to my career interests (data science) and 3) the fact I can really take my time finishing my PhD and know I’ve got something lined up for whenever suits me (as opposed to stressing about applying for jobs when writing up my thesis).
Can anyone please give me some advice on how I should proceed? I have a few weeks to decide whether to accept the postdoc offer or turn it down. What would you do in my position? What I don’t want to happen is turn it down, be getting to the very end of my PhD and not be able to find a job either way.
I’m thinking a win-win might be to take it (due to the timeline suiting me), but then as soon as I start, begin looking for permanent jobs elsewhere whilst I’m getting steady income (I can hand in my notice whenever I want). What do you think?
P.S. I expect we’d have a 15-20% deposit on the house
Submitted June 06, 2021 at 04:37AM by JLane1996 https://ift.tt/3gbgLp2
