Question
Can I hedge job offers? Here is the deal: I got a job offer with company A. I am coming up on the end of the interview process with company B, which I would much prefer to work for. What is the proper way to address this? Tell company B that I have an offer to get it to move faster? Or should I try to push off the company A start date to give B more time? Or, should I just start with company A then, if company B makes a good offer, quit A? I want to be fair.
Nick’s Reply
You want to be fair? What’s that got to do with the interview schedules of two companies? Fairness doesn’t come into it. (If these employers wanted to be fair, they’d coordinate their interviews for your benefit, right? Hardly. This is business.) If you try to control any company’s interview or hiring schedule you may risk any job offer from them.
Hedge job offers by making choices
You have just one binary choice at this point: To accept or decline the offer from company A.
Don’t let fantasies of fairness cloud reality. You have no other offer, and you don’t know whether you will get one. You can reject A and wait for B. If you want the A offer, then accept it and deal with B when and if they make an offer — and you don’t know whether they will.
Sometimes, you must hedge job offers for the good of your career.
Employers hedge job offers, too
Accepting the offer from A does not mean you must stop talking with B — or stop waiting for B. Do you think employers stop talking to other candidates while they wait on an answer from their first choice? Employers hedge job offers because they know people sometimes change their minds, and they wisely want to keep their options open until a new hire shows up and starts work. This hedging explains many of the “unexplained” delays of corporate hiring decisions.
Likewise, the prudent way to handle your situation is to make one choice at a time and to hedge your bets to protect your options.
Deal with the real choice
To hedge job offers is not unethical or unfair. Dealing with each choice as it comes along is simply good business. Don’t let the uncertain future confuse you about what your present choices really are.
Suppose you reject A so you can wait for B, and then B makes no offer. How would you feel? Is that fair of B? Fairness is not the issue at all.
I discuss this at length in Fearless Job Hunting, Book 9: Be The Master Of Job Offers. For a limited time, this PDF book is 50% off, as are all my PDF books. Visit the bookstore and use discount code=ATH50 when checking out!
How would you deal with staggered job offers? Is it unethical to accept an offer, only to drop it if a better one comes along? Is that unfair? Please share your experiences with us — and the outcomes.
: :
Accept A. You may like it just fine once you are in it. People, working conditions, travel, your team. And B may never materialize…or be a bust once the deal is on the table.
Likewise A may be a disaster and B the better choice. No shame in ankling A for B if it turns out that way.
Something like this happened to me in 2022. The difference: I signed with company A to join three months later (my notice period at my old company was that long), then a couple of weeks later, I saw an ad for company B and applied to it before joining company A.
However, company B took its sweet time, so I joined company A while interviewing with several people at company B. When they finally made an offer, I signed that, then quit company A to join B where I’m really happy.
The one thing I regret is leading a double life: not telling my manager and my colleagues at company A that I was considering to leave very soon. I’m sorry for the, but I’m happy I chose company B.
@Lazarus: There’s nothing nice about keeping your plans close to the chest. No matter how sorry you feel, it’s for good reasons. First, the risk of disclosing to A might seem small, but the consequences would be huge. So it’s not worth the risk. Second, either company could experience a reversal and plan a layoff and not disclose it to you for months, then give you no notice at all. Everybody could be a good person, but good business sometimes requires playing things close to the chest. Sometimes you can soften the blow, and so can an employer. It’s all in how you handle it. But prudent business and career decisions sometimes leave a mess. The point is to know that and to be ready for the feelings it leaves behind. People who have real trouble with this tend to avoid accepting it for what it is: prudent business. You can still be a nice guy, just somewhere else. Glad you chose wisely. I discuss all this in my PDF book, “Parting Company: How to leave your job.”
https://www.asktheheadhunter.com/store/pc/partingcompany.htm
Inevitably the fairness quandary rears it’s head when someone is presented with the scenario presented here. The pundits will espouse tropes regarding “ethical behavior” and “being true to your word” and the like. While these may be laudable concepts in theory, the practical aspects must be raised as well.
Whenever I get involved in discussions about this scenario (or in a similar discussion about “leaving your current employer in the lurch” when accepting a new job offer) one MUST consider turning the argument on its head – i.e. would the management at Company A hesitate even in the slightest in terminating you (or rescinding the offer, barring legal reprisals) if it made business sense for them to do so? If new data eliminates your position, or even your entire department, you will receive a “too bad, so sad” notice and you are SOL with no recourse.
So one must always do whatever makes the most business sense for YOU. Burn bridges along the way? That’s just another factor in the analysis before you pull the final trigger. But you need to do best for you, not abide by some antiquated sense of loyalty or ethical behavior that has no basis in advocating the best choices for you and your family.
@Hank: Yes, sometimes reality and the truth are harsh. Acknowledging this and letting it guide you does not prevent anyone from trying to make it as friendly and palatable as possible, even if it’s not much. I always advocate doing what you can to soften the blow, whether you’re the employee or the employer, without putting yourself at risk. Your last sentence is important.
Hank,
Agreed! Employers have done this to themselves.
Better to use your personal ethics when dealing with those close to you and not with those w/o ethics. Just a real life opinion.
The company perspective is always that ethics applies to employees in every case. I worked for a head hunter for a while and I noticed that they all wanted honest employees. But the details were they they were not honedt with employees or other companies. That is, employee to be honest with the employer, not with the prospect of customers period
OT – just saw this interesting item, “Lazarus Group Spotted Targeting Nuclear Engineers with CookiePlus Malware” (thehackernews dot com/2024/12/lazarus-group-spotted-targeting-nuclear.html). Paragraphs of note (edited):
The answer to this seems quite simple.
Accept A, then use the offer from A to needle B to make a decision quick. If they want you, they’ll jump on it. If they don’t, you’re a backup option or weren’t qualified (in their eyes) and you’ve had no real loss. Of course mention this to no one but your spouse if you need to. No one at A needs to know. Not their business. And no one at B needs to know who your offer is from either. Again, not their business.