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An executive who's worked for Microsoft, Yahoo, and SoFi explains why you shouldn't take a job for the money
(Joanne Bradford, chief operating officer at SoFi attends Cosmopolitan Fun Fearless Money 2016.Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Cosmopolitan)
Let's be honest: Sometimes the most attractive part of a job offer is the salary.
But accepting a job for the money that you may not be personally invested in could actually end up hurting your career.
As Joanne Bradford, chief operating officer of SoFi, an online lending company, advised onstage at Cosmopolitan and SoFi's Fun Fearless Money event last month: "Don't always sell your soul to the highest bidder."
According to Bradford — a former executive at Demand Media, Microsoft, Pinterest, and Yahoo — money shouldn't be the driving factor for a career move.
"I don't think that always getting paid more is the answer, there's a lot of things that go into the equation — timing, skill set, the health of the organization, the growth of the organization," she told Business Insider. Generally, you should always be aware of the value you bring to a company and be willing to take on more responsibility — and the money will follow, Bradford advised.
By accepting the job with a bigger paycheck, you could be missing out on worthwhile learning experiences, especially in a startup environment, which often can't afford to pay employees top dollar in the early stages.
Bradford counts the moments when she chose experience over money among the biggest risks she's taken in her life.
"I've taken some pretty big salary cuts to join organizations with upside potential. Some of it has paid out and some of it hasn't. I'm probably batting 50/50 on that," she said. "But in the end, the value to my overall career has more than paid itself off."
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