Help me choose! Cisco vs MetLife (Cary: insurance, home, layoffs)
Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, CaryThe Triangle Area
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I will be graduating in May with a degree in Business Administration & have been applying to many jobs for weeks. I finally have some amazing full-time offers to choose from; the two I am most interested in comparing are listed below:
*Cisco: Network Engineering
- 3 month training program (will take CCNA exam afterwards, and CCNP within 6 months)
- Great benefits and salary between $60,000 and $63,000
- Flexible scheduling & work from home available
- 30 minute commute (45 min with traffic)
- Company has been around for a while, minimal annual raises, history of annual layoffs
*MetLife: MetLife Technical University Program
- 3 to 6 month training program
- Multiple roles available (most interested in Business/Systems Analyst role)
- Unknown scheduling, work from home also available
- Slightly worse benefits, salary between $64,000 and $67,000
- 20 minute commute (35 min with traffic)
- GTO campus new to Cary, lesser layoffs per year than Cisco
I believe I am qualified enough for both roles, even though they are vastly different from each other. The main things I would like to know are:
* Which job has a better long-term career path?
* Do you have any experience with either role? If so, how was it?
* If you had to choose, which would you pick?
You're the person who went to the interviews, asked questions and got to talk to people you'd be working with. I would hope that you'd be able to make a reasonable decision.
Go with Cisco. I have hired a few people who worked for both companies and it was clear that Cisco provided them with more skills than Metlife. Also, Metlife's business model is shifting dramatically at the moment as they exit the personal insurance market in the U.S.
Both options look great. You must be very talented to have these companies going after you. I wouldn't worry too much about layoffs since they could happen anywhere. If you have the right skills you will bounce right back.
Do you want to work in tech or work in insurance? As pointed out, MetLife is making a pretty dramatic change to their business. Insurance seems like a boring place to work, compared to hi tech Cisco. Would you ever want to work with Cisco in California? Just seems like the opportunities are better at Cisco. Think about your next job, and what would look better on the resume.
It really depends on how technical you want your career to be down the road. The networking certifications are great assets to have, and it's always a great foundation to start from. For some folks, that may be exactly what they want. If that's the case, Cisco is the easy choice. But as I see that you seem to be interested in the business/systems analyst role, that's maybe not as possible at Cisco.
Personally, I think it's better to go technical early in your career. It's a foundation that you can then augment with business knowledge if you don't want to stay on the highly technical side of things. It's much, much harder to do the opposite - start on the business side of things and then try to transition to the technical.
Even though my job @ Cisco gives me headaches some days , I'd say go with Cisco. The benefits are crazy good and I think it'd be a great place to work for a recent college grad.
As a long-time Met customer, I just said sayonara to Met.
Met seems to be going into "junk" insurance like the kind the guy in PA has been touting for years with no medical exam.
Met balled up my switch in auto insurance to GEICO by sending DMV 3 cancellations in 3 months. This caused me a bunch of trouble with DMV.
It seems to me that the Metlife company may be hitting a bumpy road.
Technical may be a better choice.
Good luck.
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, I'd say go with Cisco. The benefits are crazy good and I think it'd be a great place to work for a recent college grad.
