Would you take a role where you knew there would be redundancies in the organisation within the next couple of years?

[Notgreggs]

Dsis was approached by a recruiter with a job that would have been a pay increase and a good side step for her. She toyed with the idea for a while and was quite tempted but ultimately decided not to apply it as it felt really risky to move from a very stable organisation to a big of local government that is going to merge with another council within the next few years, as everyone is assuming there will be redundancies.
I don't think it was the right move for her anyway, but it just got me thinking, it must be so hard for organisations to recruit once they are in that position? I guess maybe that's why they were offering a pretty good salary for the role?
Sorry it's a bit of a random question but I just felt for Dsis as she otherwise really liked the sound of the job!

It depends on lots of different things.
Mainly, how much you depend on having an income, or that level of income.

But also, in some careers it is beneficial to have experience in different jobs, and moving around is considered a positive.

At some stages of life (being about to apply for a mortgage, or considering taking maternity leave, or once you are considered old for the workforce, then knowing you are likely to be out of work in a couple of years is more worrying than at other times.

I work in public sector about to go through a similar reorg. What is likely to happen is existing vacancies will start to be held to offset the risk of redundancy, and some roles will be recruited to on a fixed term basis. We do really struggle in filling vacancies however.

I guess I can see that some people it would work for them to take the risk, but it must massively limit who you can attract to consider the job.
I feel frustrated for Dsis that she wasn't in a position to consider it, as she'd be good at it. But I guess to some extent that's why she even got the call about the job when normally they might have looked for someone more experienced

Besides the pay increase, is it a step up? Would she learn new skills, have increased responsibilities?
Is she qualified in a field in demand? Could she easily find something else if made redundant?
My BIL once covered a maternity leave (he was working on construction, so in between short-medium term contracts). The maternity leave cover was a step up for him, and it turned out to be a right decision as he found a stable job to that level of seniority before his contract even ended.
As a @CarpetKnees says personal circumstances also matter. Can she afford to take some risks?