I’m in the unenviable position of having been offered a job that I almost certainly won’t be able to take. It’s halfway across the country and right now is just not a good time for me or cwPartner to pack up and move. When I interviewed for the job I honestly believed that this WAS a great time to move.
I would like to work for this company, and in a year or two we’ll be in a good position to move anywhere we want to. How can I decline this offer and retain some chance of getting hired by this company in the future? I’m thinking a letter on the order of, “While I’d love to work for you, recent changes in family circumstances make it impossible for the next year, blah, blah, blah…”
Would this help smooth things over, or would I be guaranteeing that any future applications go straight into the shredder?
Yes, sounds eminently sensible. You might want to add something to keep your options open, and an apology too, since it’s polite and can’t hurt.
“Should my personal circumstances change, I would be only too happy to resubmit my resume, as I had been very keen on working for Acme Corp, Inc. I sincerely apologise for any inconvenience I may have caused you.”
Don’t expect them to hold the job for you. They will fill with another candidate and never look back.
When you say “not a good time” do you mean convenience, or dire family obligations will not permit you to move? For instance, when I moved to Florida from South Carolina for a job, Ivylad was not able to follow me until six months later. I had the kids, and we had monthly visits. Not fun, but the job was not one that I could pass up, as it moved us closer to family and was a step up in my career.
Unless something else is going on, since you really want to work for this company, I would suggest you think long and hard about whether or not you can make this work.
I know they won’t hold the job for me, and I would never expect them to. However, the company has many similar positions, so it’s not unreasonable to think that something appropriate might open up in the next few years as people quit, retire, move on, etc. It’s also in a field with fairly high turnover - people leave for more fun projects, lucrative contracting gigs, better resume dressing, that sort of thing.
It’s a tough call for a couple of reasons. cwPartner has suddenly decided that he wants to wait out his current job in hopes of early retirement. That’s close to three years away, though, and I’m not interested in maintaining the relationship over that kind of distance for that kind of time. I know other people do it, but I don’t want to be one of them. We already live several hours apart, but we can see each other every weekend. The cost of flying every weekend would be prohibitive.
Even if I can persuade cwPartner to move, we have to deal with his parents. They’re basically OK living on their own, but it now looks like they are going to need one of the kids (for some reason, him) to come out there regularly to do things that require good eyesight, computer skills, that sort of thing. He’s going to be making a LOT of trips to their place until they are ready to move into some kind of assisted living facility, or someplace closer to one of their other relatives. If cwPartner stays where he lives now, flights are cheap, readily available, short, and convenient. If he moves to the area where the job is, it becomes a lot more expensive and inconvenient to get to the folks. I’d already be taking a hit on pay (lower salary, higher cost of living) and this will be a burden if he can’t find a job quickly.
Fair enough. I would just let them know that your circumstances have changed and you will be unable to accept their offer at this time. I would be specific, so they won’t think you’re some sort of flake, and let them know you are still interested in working for them at a later date.
It’s very off-putting for an employer to spend the time and energy to interview applicants, narrow them down, and finally offer a job, only to have that person decline. They generally have to either start the process all over again or go with their second, less ideal choice. Unless you give them a very good reason for your decision (which it sounds like you have several) they may have a bad taste in their mouth where you are concerned and not consider you at all for future positions.
Look, it’s not the right time for you to work for them. Be as upfront and specific as possible, apologize like crazy, and it wouldn’t hurt to stay in touch with them, say every six months or so, to keep you in their mind.
Speaking as someone who has been on both sides of the hiring desk, I don’t think you necessarily have hurt your chances by declining the job. People who have declined jobs here are certainly welcome to apply again in the future; I don’t have the sense that anyone in my department would hold against them the fact that they have turned us down in the past. And just a few years ago, I turned down a job elsewhere; the chair of that department keeps in touch and has informed me that they have some retirements coming up and I should keep them in mind. Perhaps things are different in academia, but I just thought I’d give you a more hopeful perspective on things. BTW, what you were thinking about writing sounds good to me; I would accept that as legitimate.