28F with 5+ YOE in marketing/advertising/creative production, most recently was at a big tech company but my entire team was laid off mid-March.
Since the layoff, I went into absolute panic mode and have been applying a bunch to roles that I feel like I'm a good match, about 105+ apps and feel really lucky that I've had 11 companies reach out for interviews so far. I live in a HCOL city and had told myself I would allow a paycut up until a certain threshold so I could at least keep up with living costs. With savings + severance I have at least 6 months of financial runway to find something.
I received an offer from a creative agency this week for 25% less than my last role (and below my threshold) that I'm feeling really conflicted about. While I'm very much aware that the market is insane right now, I'm hesitating to jump at taking this offer as an interim job while continuing to find something better.
When I interviewed, one of my interviewers was super transparent about the culture of the company (pretty toxic, senior leadership is a mess, awful work life balance, etc.) and even offered to give me her phone number if I wanted to continue to have a more candid conversation. I've also looked up Glassdoor reviews and it looks to reflect everything the interviewer was saying.
My previous tech company really did a mental number on me and I was hoping with my next role I could find an environment a little bit better and it's part of what is making me hesitate - I do have a concern that I won't have the bandwidth to keep looking for other jobs if I take this along with the fact that the salary just isn't it.
I keep going in circles on whether or not to take this job or to turn it down and keep looking. A lot of people around me have encouraged me not to sell myself short and to keep looking, especially with the positive momentum I currently have, but I keep cifcling back to so many stories on here of people who have been struggling for so long to find something. What would you do?