When do they expect you to start if you accept the offer?
I’d tell the other companies that you have an offer. It might make you more attractive to them. If you are high on their list you will hear, otherwise you won’t. Companies are often loath to make decisions, hoping that the perfect candidate will come along. I have a headhunter friend who complains about her clients not being able to make up their minds all the time.
If you do get an offer between the time you accept the first one and start, don’t think twice about taking it. I agree with those who say that a company will rescind your offer at a moment’s notice. If the only difference is money, you can use that to negotiate, but you had better like the second job also.
I have a problem with starting and then quitting after a week. If you do this, don’t plan on going back to the company if the second job doesn’t work out. But it is not the end of the world if you do.
Remember: Companies are made of people. They have emotions just like you do. You know how when people go to buy a house, they sometimes fall in love with it, even if it’s not in their best interest? Well now that the company has given you an offer, they’re not going to abandon it in a heartbeat if you say the wrong thing.
I suggest you be open and straightforward with them. Tell them you have other potential offers. They won’t have hurt feelings. They know they’re not the “only one in your life”. It might give you some leverage in negotiations too.
Then call the other two companies and tell them that you’ve got an offer in hand. It might help move things along on their end.
ETA: If it were me, I’d take the first offer and be done with it. Shorter commute, and everything else is passable? Yeah, that’s good enough.
Pay attention to that parenthetical in Chef Troy’s response about a small industry, though. In my industry (which is huge, but in my particular corner of it) quite a lot of us know each other, go to conferences together, etc. - and it wouldn’t be strange at all for someone to say, “Oh, BrandonR? Yeah, I know him, he’s the flake who quit after a week.”
I also work in a relatively tech-heavy industry, so there can be a fair amount of training that has to be done to make an employee efficient and useful. So someone quitting after a short period of time is kind of annoying, as that’s time wasted by a more senior person, training someone who is probably not pulling his weight fully yet. (If someone leaves after a couple of years, that’s different, as the company has probably got its money’s worth out of him at that point.)
If there are other companies you’re interested in, I add my voice to those saying to a) tell the one who gave you the offer that you may have other offers on the table – they will understand the problem, even if they don’t give you as much time as you would like – and b) let the other companies know you have a deadline.
It has nothing to do with sentimentality or loyalty and everything to do with reputation. Companies do not want to hire and invest in people that are unreliable. You do not want to become known as guy who could bail at any moment just because someone makes a slightly better offer. There are expenses involved in bringing on a new person (training, paperwork, etc…) and no boss wants to incur those expenses for someone that’s a serious flight risk. Yeah, life happens; employees leave, businesses lay off workers suddenly, what have you. It’s business, after all. Good management plans for these possibilities. That doesn’t mean that they want to hire a flight-risk candidate if it’s avoidable.
A lot of this depends on the industry you work in. But you’d be surprised how often, over the course of a career, you can run into the same people or someone who knows someone you used to work with. Even in large industries.
With my first response, I ignored issues such as relocation costs. Obviously you might not want to change jobs often if you have to move every time.
Commuting times are important considerations - if you have no intention of relocating from where you currently live, shorter commutes will increase your quality of life. However if you don’t mind moving then you could possibly move very close to any job you take, and then the actual locations of those jobs becomes a factor - is there any neighborhood that is acceptable and close to the job?
Yeah, when I take into account the commute it’s pretty much a sure thing I want to take this offer. I was even getting tired of the commute to the other places when I was driving there the first time for the interview. Don’t think I want to do that on a daily basis, especially with traffic.
I got another call from one of the other companies wanting a second interview but I can’t think of anything I’d rather do less than another agonizing job interview, especially when I have an offer on the table. Looks like I’ll be signing the offer letter! Thanks again everyone!
Yeah then you’d have hated the commute. A shorter commute means you’ll be able to put more energy into the job. You don’t have to leave the house at 7am to be sure you’ll make that 9am meeting, if something comes up at 4:30pm you can stay a few extra minutes, it won’t ruin your whole night, etc.
Plus there’s something to be said for instincts, if this other company was perfect for you then you wouldn’t be thinking “ugh, not another interview”.
Congrats on the job, now that you have it enjoy your last few days of leisure.
Technically you don’t have to put any job on your resume if you don’t want to.
This statement does not reconcile with my actual experience with companies.
To the OP. I would be careful about listening to advice from a lot of the people on this board. Many of them have a “fuck you company, what are you going to do for me?” attitude that is often shortsighted and counterproductive.
As this is your first job, you want to be setting yourself up for a long-term career. Go ahead and take this first offer if it is something you want to do, but plan to stay there for at least 2 years.
If one of these other offers pans out, I would only consider taking them if a) you really want that job more than the current one, b) the company has a much greater reputation and prestige or c) you really don’t like your current position. It’s perfectly acceptible to quit a job within a month or so and say “this turned out to be not what I was looking for”.
Whatever job you take, make sure its one where you are going to get good experience and a little brand name recognition won’t hurt either. Contrary to what people on this board might think, actually being busy enough where they have you working 14 hour days for your first couple years is actually a good thing.
Yeah…I think that’s bullshit. If I come into your company, stay exactly one year and make you a million dollars in revenue, you wouldn’t hire me? What guarantee do I have the company won’t suffer a downturn or go through some sort of restructuring in 6 months? Does the company believe I’m going to want to stay at the same job within the company indefinitely?
The real reason you don’t want to jump jobs very often is that it fucking sucks being the new guy at work. Companies don’t really spend a lot of money investing in new employees and they are typically required to learn as they go. It can take upwards of 6 months just to learn the ins and outs of your job and even longer to build the internal relationships you need to be successful. Every time you leave you need to start from scratch.
You don’t have to worry about your reputation if you leave in less than a year because no one will remember you in 2-3 years. You’ll be “oh I kind of remember that guy” guy. This is actually bad because you aren’t really building a professional reputation at all.
It really depends on the industry. Trust me, some people remember and your reputation for being undependable can bite you in the ass. I’ve seen it happen. It may not be a factor here, but it can be a factor in other job situations.
But when a candidate is being considered, there’s no way of knowing in advance whether or not he’ll earn “a million dollars in revenue.” If the hiring manager was absolutely certain that a candidate would immediately bring a large amount of value to the company then what you say would be true. But in many cases things are much less clear cut. Talent, skill, experience, personality, fit with existing workers, flight-risk, motivation, ability to learn, etc… these things and more all go into the decision. If the choices are “extremely talented candidate who may or may not stick around after a year” versus “candidate who is decidedly mediocre”, that’s one thing. But if it’s “extremely talented candidate who may or may not stick around” versus “candidate who seems like he may stick around for a bit and is only slightly inferior in some other set of criteria”, that’s potentially a more difficult decision.
There are no guarantees. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to find the best-fit candidate. And “will this candidate stick around for a while?” is one of many evaluation criterion for a number of jobs. Not all jobs, but many. You have no guarantee that your prospective employer won’t give you the boot in 6 months. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do your best to minimize the chances of that occurring by evaluating your employer in that light, if that happens to be a substantial concern for you.
This is nonsense. Have you ever hired anyone for your company? Had to hire 50-100 people to staff a project? If you have, you’d know that if someone meets your job requirements, has checked out, and agrees to come work for you, you’ll hire him in a minute. Part of managing is to have contingency plans in place. That doesn’t mean I want him to quit. But in the real world, if someone has skills, he may run into another opportunity. It’s also possible that the guy could die or become disabled. All sorts of things happen.
And on the flipside is this - I’ve also been responsible for letting people go because of a change in executive level management. Priorities change immediately, every project comes under review, and if you happen to be unlucky to be on a project that is no longer going to be funded because Mr. New CEO wants to take that money and put it into another pet project, you will be shown the door with no tears or fanfare. And they don’t care one iota about what kind of effort you made to take the job. I’ve moved people and families over multiple states and even countries. That is major upheaval. I’ve also had to go to these same people and explain that the new person in charge doesn’t see a need to keep a project moving… maybe when that budget money was allocated, he disagreed with it, because it hurt is personal area of responsibility. Now in power, he has the ability to shift funds.
And he often does.
There is very little thought for the folks caught in the wake of decisions like that. So even though I will do as much as I can for someone in a bad situation, the reality is that I can’t do that much. So, I never begrudge someone who makes a decision that they feel improves his or her family’s prospects. Protect yourself above anyone or anything.
If the employee bounces around so much that he has 10 jobs in 10 years, I don’t immediately throw that resume into a shredder. Consultants bounce around like that, and the only difference is they have a home company.
As I said in my first post. Accept the job offer. And before you tell ANYONE at any other company that you have an offer, make sure the one you have is a written contract with a start date, salary, etc.
A promise for a job is **not **a job. Secure the first job, and that’s something that’s in your personal bank. Then you can worry about any other opportunities as they arise.
** all references to “he”, “his” etc., had nothing to do with me thinking a woman couldn’t be in those positions of power. It just made it easier to type.
I have hired individuals, never a team of 50-100 at a time. And we most certainly did look at employment history. Some people got removed from the queue because they jumped around too much. You may not value that much, but many folks, especially at small companies where a single employee makes a big difference, do.
Undependable is not the same thing as leaving the company, which is my point. What are they going to say? “He worked here 18 months, did a good job, and left for a better opportunity? The bastard!”
Just tell the interviewer “I’m really looking for something stable and long term so I want to be very selective with whatever place I end up at.”