A job isn’t a privilege, nor is it a right. It’s an equal trade with both sides being happy with the contract.
I agree that it seems disingenuous to apply for a job you’re not remotely interested in; however, I think it absolutely makes sense to consider an offer before accepting, particularly if the offer is for less or different (such as stock options instead of higher salary, higher salary instead of great benefits) than you were expecting. You need time to figure out if the salary is going to cover your expenses, if the benefits or enjoyment of your job might cancel out any lack of salary, etc. Then there’s the conversation you should have with your SO.
For example, I love my job. If I were looking, it’d have to be a pretty good offer to tear me away. But before I’d accept, I’d need to consider what the salary was, benefits, stock options (if any), flex time (if any), proximity to home, if I would be working in the same office I’d interviewed, what my husband thought, how family friendly they were, proximity to day care and a million other things that I wouldn’t have time to think about within 10 seconds of hearing a job offer over the phone.
Yeah, theoretically you should consider a good part of this before you’re ever offered, but you don’t have all the information (namely salary and benefits) until you actually get the offer. It’s not possible to make a decision without information like that.
By the way, another vote here for not accepting until you have it in writing. Although unlikely, it’s not unheard of for a job offer to be rescinded.
So, Dio, you do it your way, and the rest of us will do it our way. No problem.
That’s how ours are done as well. If the offer is over the phone, we tell them to expect a FedEx of the papers so they’ll have them in the morning. Then we say we’d like to know by X date, usually a Friday. Some people respond instantly. Some take up to the last minute. It doesn’t bother us one way or another.
This is for things like sales or office jobs.
For the factory, personnel does the interviews and gives all of the starting wage and benefits information at that time. There is no variation on wages. After the interview, he asks if they are still interested in being considered for the position. If yes, he considers them. If no, he doesn’t. If he wants to make an offer, he calls and asks if they are still interested. If yes, he invites them to come to an orientation.
There is no need for pressuring anyone into anything.
Hmm…some years back I was offered a job as a physician during the interview.
Either I impressed them in some way, or they were fronting for Burger King. I ultimately declined the job, so I’ll never know. :dubious:
In med school I was asked to come in and interview for a summer job. I was planning to do nothing all summer, but I went anyway. They called on a Friday and offered me the job; I asked if I could let them know on Monday, and they said that was fine.
I decided over the weekend that the money was just too good to pass up, so I called around noon on Monday to let them know I was taking it.
They said they were sorry, but they had offered the job to one of my classmates and he accepted. They weren’t (genuinely) apologetic or anything–very matter-of-fact. I was going to go over there and at least find out what happened, but I realized that I really needed the summer off and that this was meant to be.
If the position is even remotely professional, 24-48 hours is not too much to ask. I would be highly suspicious of anyone who had to have an answer that very second.
Yet another reason to get a job offer in writing. I realize it wasn’t a big deal for you at the time, but what if you were already employed, and told your current boss that you were leaving?
Many times I’ve found out that I did not want the job during the interview process. Often the ad is misleading; doesn’t have information about salary or working hours; doesn’t mention you’re going to be traveling half the time. There’s been times when one of the people involved had a bad reaction to my ownership of both an engineering degree and bobbies, which directly told me I didn’t want to be his subordinate any more than he wanted to be my boss.
A certain American company which shall not be named has a large factory near my home town. Every year they ask for people, different backgrounds, different degrees, different levels of experience. 90% of the resumes they get are from local people (even when they publish the ad in national newspapers, most people see it’s in “a small town” they’ve never been in before and don’t even consider it). The HR manager, whom I’ve known since we were kids, tells me they’re under orders to not hire any locals… when I applied I did so in good faith; when the National Employment Agency sent me there they did so in good faith. But the company does not act in good faith. “Locals abstain” is something you won’t find out either from the ad or from the interview process, you find it out over coffee and cookies in a neighbor’s kitchen.
The company’s assumption is that you unquestionably wanted the job going into the interview process, and they had only to determine which lucky recipient on which to bestow said job. That’s an assumption that is going to bite them in the ass. It also sounds like they were in a big hurry to fill the position.
I’ve always been told that one doesn’t discuss the nitty-gritty details (salary, benefits, etc.) until one has determined that applicant and employer are compatible. After the offer is made, one gets down to salary negotiaton. Of course, we’re talking here about professional and career-type positions, not flippin’ burgers while in high school. In all of my job hunting since graduating from college, I’ve deliberately stayed away from negotiating salary, benefits and detailed job description until after an offer was made. I have ALWAYS had to “think about it,” and have twice turned down positions only to have the employer come back with a more attractive offer. (That’s a double-edged sword sometimes, however.)
I’m not sure thinking about the commute is a reason to put off a decision, however. Your location and the job’s location probably don’t change during the interview process; you had lots of time to discuss the commute with whomever you needed to discuss it with. If you need to consider the commute after the offer is made, it indicates you’re not thinking ahead.
It wouldn’t do you any good anyway. Job offers can be recinded at any time. I’ve seen people hired, work for a day, and then told “hmmmmm, you know, we don’t need you.” Its a shitty thing to do to someone, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen or having a letter will do a damn thing. There isn’t anything binding about an offer letter.
I absolutely agree, a written offer can still be pulled (assuming we’re not talking about union jobs or anything like that). But a written offer letter sorta solidifies the offer, its a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that one presumes the company will follow through on. If the offer is rescinded, then legally, no, the candidate can’t do much, but if there was a headhunter or a college placement office involved in the interview process, then the company’s reputation will take a hit with these people-brokers. If its a candidate’s market then that’s a bad thing for the company, nobody wants to take a job at the place that screwed his buddy over. Likewise, if the candidate signs the ‘I’ll take it!’ line and then changes their mind, their reputation will take a hit, and within a city single industries can form a very small world. Admittedly though, the candidate has less to loose than the company from backing out of an offer.
But if the market highly favors the employer, then yes, you are probably SOL either way. We just hope that we’re not always in this type of market. (Well, **Diogenes ** doesn’t seem to mind 
)
True, but it does get down in writing that 1) there was a job offer extended and 2) what the salary/benefits/etc are. It is not a guarantee, but it does serve to clear up any misunderstandings. It’s one thing to say “Oh, there was a misunderstanding in our phone conversation, I didn’t really offer you the job” and quite another to have something in writing saying the job was really offered.
I also don’t think any reputable company would put an offer in writing and rescind it right away except in extreme circumstances. Sure, it happens - but I’d say a company that does that is not reputable. On the other hand, I’ve met plenty of crazy HR people who will promise you the sun on the phone but won’t put it in writing. Writing does mean something.
A topic close to my heart, since I accepted a job offer on Monday!
It was offered on Friday, after 3 interviews, and I asked for the weekend to “think it over.” There was no hesitation from the hiring partner to grant me that; indeed, she offered me her cell phone number in case I had any questions.
Intellectually, I knew the job was better then my current position (both in terms of salary and in terms of work environment), but the dramatic change in life circumstances accompanying a new job still led me to take the weekend to re-think my earlier calculations. “Is this really what I want to do?” is a choice that merits a few hours of contemplation
Besides, I have a good relationship with my current employer, and I wanted to talk to him before I accepted the offer (not because I was looking for more money, as the dynamics of the office were part of why I was leaving, but out of respect for him). He said he needed me to stay through the end of the month, to handle the transition. So, I accepted on Monday, provided I wouldn’t start until the 1st of August (and provided that the salary/benefits I was told about were definite). Again, the new employer had no problem with that, and encouraged me to give my current boss time to make the transition (I think they saw it as a sign of being a responsible employee, which is a trait they value in people they are hiring).
So, IMHO, asking for a day (or weekend, as the case may be), is both reasonable and responsible. An employer who recoils at the suggestion is probably too inflexible to want to work for.
If there’s a job posted that pays $50,000, and you’re not interested unless it pays $100,000, then you’re wasting everybody’s time by applying. If the business doesn’t tell you up front what the salary would be, then they’re wasting everybody’s time, too.
What a sad statement to make. I hope we never have to work together.
When I managed a bunch of full-time employees, I worked very hard to be loyal to them. I did my best to let them have any time off that they needed. I provided the best benefits I could afford to. I covered for people when they needed it. When somebody went above and beyond the call of duty, I provided bonuses. If I couldn’t come up with some cash in the budget for a bonus, I’d provide time off with pay or arrange a good business trip (e.g., if someone put in a bunch of extra work finishing up a product before a trade show, I’d pay their way to the show).
I worked with several employees on course selections when they went to college, and tutored several after work. A group of us worked with a Persian employee to help him become a U.S. citizen. I did my absolute best to promote from within rather than hiring from outside. My first receptionist became the company’s top sales rep six years later. An 18-year-old tech support rep became our lead software engineer.
Of course, I expected loyalty in return. If I’m counting on you for a mission-critical project, I’d better not find out your resume is on the street, or I’m replacing you immediately with someone I can count on, and moving you to something that isn’t so important. The training curve is too steep and the penalty for being late to market is too high to depend on disloyal employees.
The result? When the average Silicon Valley technical employee was changing jobs every 16 months, my average was far better. In six years, as we grew our tech support department from 5 to 15 people, only one of them left the company. We went for two years without losing a single programmer.
Loyalty makes a business work. It makes for happier employees, more profits, and better benefits. I’m sorry you consider that “quaint.”
Truly, I agree that it’s sad, but that doesn’t make it incorrect. In the 80’s with the enthusiatic help of the Reagan administration, corporations began to destroy organized labor. In the nineties, they began to destroy our industrial infrastructure, outsourcing whole manufacturing industries not because they couldn’t make a profit here, but because they couldn’t make enough profit here. The corporate raiders went even further, dismantling companies and firing thousands of employees like chop shop operators. They didn’t fire unproductive or disloyal workers, they fired everyone. My dad, who had worked at his company for 20 years, had his pay cut in half after the company busted the union.
This is not to say that all corporations are necessarily evil, but at the very least the job market is much more volatile. An individual simply cannot afford to trust that the company will take care of its workers so long as they perform competently. You can’t even count on a company to survive the length of your own career. Odds are it will be sold, resold and reorganized with no regard at all for the people who earn their livings from it.
So damn straight it’s a good idea for workers to keep a toe in the job market.
What kind of a corporate utopia do you work in where a job pays a certain amount? Everywhere I’ve ever worked everything would reorganize itself to account for new hires not the other way around. What the person gets paid depends on what the company is willing to pay them for what they bring to the company – I’ve never met anybody with a bachelors degree or above who worked exactly within the posted job description. There’s probably six people within 40ft of me at work with the exact same title and job description as I have and I’m fairly sure at least somebody makes double of what somebody else makes.
Yeah and if your division gets closed at the whim of the shareholders they’d be cleaning out their desks by the end of the day. Unless you can guarantee that can’t happen it’s not even reasonable of you to expect a two-weeks notice if somebody sees a better opportunity. Unless you build some sort of a rapport with a person that easily goes beyond the scope of employment then your loyalty to them ends the moment you are fired or laid off. That’s merely an illusion of loyalty.
A lot depends on the size of the company. When I had my own businesses (20 to 160 people), we often created jobs to fit the candidate. At large corporations, there’s a specific need to be filled. If they need a Perl Programmer with 5 years of experience and a BS, there’s a specific pay range for that, and the upper end won’t be double the lower end.
In all three of the businesses I’m referring to here, a majority of the shares were held by me, my wife, and my brother. Unlike your typical shareholder in a public corporation, who doesn’t even understand the concept of ownership, we weren’t in it for the short haul, and nothing got closed on a whim. When my wife and I were building the software business, and it was under 10 employees, we made payroll out of our personal bank account twice–and this was a corporation. Yeah, the people matter. Without good employees, the business is dead, so we took care of them well.
Every job I’ve ever applied to has not had a salary listed, and only discussed pay with the offer after the interview.
The offer letter has many more uses. It can be used to secure a mortgage, to prove intent to move to a certain area… I haven’t drawn a single paycheck from my new job, but I’ve done all the aforementioned activities thanks to the letter stating my salary and job title.
Apologies for the minor hijack, but that’s really, really surprising. Why would a company have such a policy in place? Why refuse to hire locals if they are sufficiently qualified, especially if, like you said, it was in a small town where people were reluctant to move to?