Workers Want More Pay, Not Prestige --- The days of taking a coveted job with bragging rights are fading in the face of inflation and high housing prices.

"For a prestigious early-career job, it's hard to beat Teach for America.

The program typically admits less than 20% of applicants, giving it the hard-to-get-into cachet of an elite university. Plus joining TFA's corps of educators in struggling schools brings admiration for doing good along with access to a network of accomplished alumni. Yet the nonprofit's ranks have dwindled from roughly 6,000 teachers a decade ago to about 2,200 today.

One reason stands out: pay. Teach for America has added millions of dollars in grants to approximate signing bonuses. This helped make this fall's cohort 38% larger than the last.

In the tug of war between love and money, cash has more pull right now. From accounting firms to medical research labs, businesses and organizations that have traditionally wooed candidates with bragging rights instead of the biggest bucks are losing out on talent.

Inflation, housing costs, student debt and rising interest rates have many workers saying the idea of a prestige discount -- accepting less money for a job that is highly regarded -- is simply impractical.

Pay has to be a major factor when would-be teachers can make considerably more in the private sector, says Teach for America Chief Executive Elisa Villanueva Beard. The goal: regrowing to between 3,000 and 4,000 teachers.

"Our competition for recent college grads is tech companies and consulting groups where they could be making double," says Villanueva Beard. "We've lost a lot in the last few years. How do you win when finances are a big deal for folks?"

Surveys by Gallup and the Pew Research Center show that compensation, always a key piece of career decisions, has become an even higher priority for job seekers in recent years. Many workers don't define themselves by their job titles like they did before the pandemic, so they don't mind working for no-name companies if those employers pay up so they can have fuller personal lives.

One college professor who took a pay cut to jump from a state school to Yale several years ago told me he's not so sure he would make the same decision today. Others add that prestigious jobs often demand long hours or time away from family, which can make even six-figure salaries feel discounted. A former Google engineer described feeling like he got a raise when he made a lateral move to a venture-backed startup because he earned more on an hourly basis.

It's smart to look with critical eyes at any role that doesn't maximize your worth, says Betsey Stevenson, former chief economist of the U.S. Labor Department.

"It only makes sense to take a pay cut for a prestigious job if you think it's going to ultimately pay you more down the line by facilitating a faster climb up the ladder," says Stevenson, now a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan.

So many scientists are snubbing postdoctoral fellowships that the National Institutes of Health has convened a working group to address the recruitment problem. NIH-funded postdoc positions look impressive on resumes but come with first-year stipends of $56,484, far less than many industry roles.

"In biomedicine, postdocs are running the experiments. They're doing the cutting-edge science," says Donna Ginther, a University of Kansas economist who is part of the NIH working group. A postdoc shortage threatens the national pipeline of medical research, she adds.

Churches and synagogues are warning of a looming clergy shortage. Being revered as a reverend or rabbi isn't drawing people to divine work like it used to.

And if God is having a hard time, imagine what it's like for Uncle Sam. The honor of public service isn't the draw that it once was, so the federal government is dangling better pay and benefits, such as $20,000 signing bonuses for some hard-to-fill jobs with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Even blue-chip banks and consulting firms that siphon talent from the likes of Teach for America have boosted salaries to remain competitive, as more workers look past established brands to reach for the top bids.

Davis Nguyen, a job coach for people trying to break into management consulting, says historically many candidates would settle for lower salaries if offered positions at one of the three best-known firms, McKinsey & Co., Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Co., where he worked.

Nguyen estimates the share of his clients who are willing to leave money on the table for a prestigious job has declined to about 30% during the past three years. Most would join a lesser-known consulting business or take a job in a different field for $25,000 to $35,000 more.

"Sometimes they lose out on great talent because they can't offer more," he says of the top-tier companies.

Avani Desai felt like an oddity when she walked away from a director-level position at KPMG in 2012. Her role at a Big Four accounting firm was a mark of success, and she believed she was on track to make partner.

Yet she saw a higher ceiling at Schellman, a much smaller CPA firm based in Tampa, Fla., that was 10 years old at the time. She also was drawn to the option to work from home, having spent 52 days with her then-infant son during the first year of his life because of work-related travel. Desai joined Schellman as an executive vice president and became CEO in 2021.

"This was a strategic move at maximizing my career growth and professional contributions, and maximizing what my financial potential was going to be over time," she says.

Desai notices similar decisions are now more common for her peers and -- to her delight as a boss -- for the people she recruits, too. She says the combination of great pay and more flexibility has helped her poach from better-known companies, including Microsoft and Amazon, landing hires who wouldn't have considered her company in the past." [1]

1. On the Clock: Workers Want More Pay, Not Prestige --- The days of taking a coveted job with bragging rights are fading in the face of inflation and high housing prices. Borchers, Callum.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 02 Nov 2023: A.12.