Internships may not be an option if you are not going to school, but you may want to think about choosing between several places to work in a way where you want more time to judge each company, and also without the stigma of switching jobs a few months at a time.<p>This is just an outsiders perspective looking in, but internships look like a very long, drawn-out job interview, in a good way. They are testing you to see if you are a fit for a real job while you are present at the company, except that it lasts for months rather than days or hours. With that period of time you have a much better way of soaking in the work environment of that particular company, instead of just having a few hours to make a judgment of the company, team, and potential peers.<p>What options are there to "try before you buy" in that regard? Internships seem like a unique proposition that unfortunately are being limited to college students. If I want to try out working for Tech Company X can I propose a 3 month contract job for X as a possible similar experience?
I've tried writing this response a few times. Really I don't think this exists. Of course, you can usually resign if you don't like it inside a 3 month period with a shorter notice before the notice period goes up.<p>However, regardless of how you structure it, it'd still need to be something acceptable in the mind of whoever reviews your CV after you've tried out 3 or 4 companies. You might be able to talk a company into structuring it as a short contract but I don't know if that'll be possible.<p>As an employer, if I was recruiting for a permanent position and a candidate suggested a 3 month contract before committing to a full-time position, I'd probably pass them on because I need reliability and this structure represents a risk. I want to structure the deal from the point of view that it will work out as opposed to that it won't.<p>To conclude, you can structure a deal in any way you want but I think what you're talking about is a change to working culture itself which is a lot harder to do.