I have graduated from a top-ranked one year MBA in 2019 December. Long story short, during MBA my original focus was financial industry, which didn't work out. So I started case preps and interviewed with a few consulting companies, but didn't manage to get an offer in the end. I feel the opportunities existing on the market now are quite limited.

Recently I got an offer from a boutique consulting firm. Here’s some pros and cons of the role:

Pros: the job skill set will be applicable and transferable for my next step to consulting, and I could end my “career gap”. Also, the job itself sounds interesting and I had a great conversation with the managers.

Cons: the brand is mediocre, and I don't know whether the brand would damage me since it signals that I didn't manage to get an offer at a respected consulting firm straight out of school. Also, pay is not good comparing to MBB level, but acceptable given that living cost in my country is low. In fact, the pay is lower than my pre-MBA salary given that this is a localized firm, and my pre-MBA salary pays quite good. In my country, local firms usually don't pay a much higher salary to MBA candidates compared to those with a master degree. (i.e. salary is based on rankings instead of education degree). So getting into MBB is the only way to get a global pay.

Honestly, I applied for this job initially as a "backup". I am puzzled on what I should do now: (1) Accept offer and start the job. Probably work for 1-2 years and reapply for better consulting firms. (2) Accept offer but continue job searching before onboarding, and renege offer if I get an ideal one. (3) Decline offer and continue job searching, which is very risky in my point of view.

Since I have already been out of job market for 6 months, I feel really worried to be unemployed for an even longer period. I feel quite desperate and I don’t have the confidence that I could get my “dream job” in a few months of time.

Would you think I should spend more time to do job searching for my ideal job? Or use this one as a stepping stone? Thank you for your feedback!