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Congrats on the job! I've always wanted to go to Chicago, but haven't made it there yet.
If your likely time horizon is only 2-3 years, I'd really look at the renting option. As nice as it is to buy, you have 2 big things against you with such a short time period. First is that you're going to pay thousands in closing costs on a purchase and then much more on the sale in a few years. You'd have to appreciate something like 8% just to break even on the fees on both ends.
Second, even if you believe this is the bottom of the housing slump, the recovery is much more likely to be a slow flat recovery than a V shaped recovery. Appreciation will likely be very slow for the coming years.
Put both slow appreciation potential and the costs of purchasing and selling a home in just a few years together and you're probably as likely to loose money as make it in a few years. Plus rents in many areas of the country are really weak righ now with the combination of unemployment and people starting to look at buying with prices coming down so much. I don't now about Chicago specifically, but there are great deals on rentals in a lot of areas right now.
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