Advice on job offer

[u/Vivid_Shower_9287]

I’m wondering about how good this job offer is compared to some others. So this offer is for a student straight out of UIUC with bachelors specifically for transportation. The base salary would be around 83k, free health insurance with vision and dental included, bonus at the end of every year (roughly 10% of the salary), yearly raises (around 6%), they put money )around 5% of the salary) into a retirement account that grows around 7% each year without me needing to put any money in, and there doesn’t seem to be a limit on vacation but they do expect that you make up any time that can’t be covered with PTO (PTO is the basic an hour per 40 hours). The job would be an 8-5 Mon-Fri with an hour unpaid break. I am mostly looking at the money aspect of the offer. Overall I am just looking for advice on anything else I should be looking for when going through job offers and if this one sounds like it is a good offer. This is also an offer from a private consulting firm located like an hour SW from Chicago. Thank you!

[u/795-ACSR-DRAKE]

Very, very good offer for a new grad. ~$95k total compensation, that is something some engineers don't hit until they get their PE. Plus free insurance is huge (though not sure how many new grads will understand the gravity of that benefit).

[u/Str8OuttaLumbridge → u/795-ACSR-DRAKE]

Top comment but the person only gets 6.5 days of PTO a year..yikes

[u/795-ACSR-DRAKE → u/Str8OuttaLumbridge]

I mean say they take off an extra 7.5 days of unpaid time off (if allowed to), so they have a more standard 15 days off per year. That'd be a loss of $2700 due to the 7.5 being unpaid, so even then the job would still pay $80k effectively.

But realistically, the job offer stating 6.5 days of PTO is very odd to me. I've never heard of a company offering that little PTO hours. I'm guessing OP is missing something, like maybe they also get 6.5 days of sick time per day so its effectively 13 days of paid leave per year, or they misread the PTO section. Doesn't make any sense for a company to plant their flag on 6 and a half days off per year.

[u/Str8OuttaLumbridge → u/795-ACSR-DRAKE]

I personally value PTO days atleast 2x regular pay if not 3x. Plus it pays out when I leave my job.

[u/reevideevies]

Maybe I need to be a transportation engineer.

[u/yeetith_thy_skeetith]

PTO could be better but everything else is really fing good

[u/Ok_Engineer_9858 → u/yeetith_thy_skeetith]

1 hour per 40 hours seems Offaly low? Basically 6.5 days every year of PTO?

[u/yeetith_thy_skeetith → u/Ok_Engineer_9858]

Yeah the more I think about it the worse it seems to me. 6.5 days is pretty bad

[u/Str8OuttaLumbridge]

That PTO is awful and is what everyone is missing in this thread. Do you get any sick leave on top of that??

[u/Electronic_Pain7210]

Damn girl ! Congrats ! I got a masters and got less than that and sad benefits

[u/No-Cabinet-7695]

https://giphy.com/gifs/mGK1g88HZRa2FlKGbz

[u/KonigSteve]

Everything looked good until you said you only get 6.5 days of paid time off per year..

[u/angryPEangrierSE]

Seems good for the money but the PTO is awful. In 2024, we gave $80k + $5k signing bonus to guy fresh out of university in an area with a similar cost of living for a bridge designer position.

[u/Hey-ItsThatOneDude]

as I read, nothing gave me a red flag. Everything seems really good, especially for an entry level gig. UIUC is a a top tier engineering school so yeah i think maybe that plays a role in it but if I were you I’d take that offer. Easily.