Looking back on the past year spent working in marketing for Smith Group in Washington, D.C., Kate Erdy, 27, remembers the uncertainty she felt when she had to decide whether to take the job last November, leaving a secure position at a smaller design company for the unknown at the larger firm.
“That was a scary move, kind of risky at the time to change when I already had a job,” she says. “I had managed to survive two rounds of layoffs.”