Etiquette when offered two positions?!

zenshi

Ok, so this is a little previous but want to be armed so to speak

My daughter has had 2 interviews this week after finishing her MSc. Job A is her preferred and will be contacted tomorrow if she has made it to 2nd interview. Job B will contact her on Monday with either rejection or job offer

What if.....she gets second interview but is offered the other job before the second interview takes place?!? What is the etiquette to holding off accepting in case preferred job comes good?!

TyreLever

Personally I would take the 1st job I was offered. Then if and when a better job comes up I would take that instead. Good jobs are extremely hard to come by.

Employers will always seek to take on the best possible candidates. Its more than acceptable for it to work the other way round aswell.

TELLIT01

Accept the 2nd job if it's offered. She can always phone later to say that she unfortunately has to decline the offer if the preferred job is offered. Bird in the hand and all that.

CCFC_80

Put yourself first. Its likely other candidates would be lined up for the role if you don't accept

Savvy_Sue

You can ALWAYS ask for a short period to consider whether or not to accept an offer - well there are a few exceptions to that, if you're asked if you'll accept or not, and in teaching I believe it's normal to be offered and expected to decide on the spot.

How long it's reasonable to ask for while you're deciding whether or not to accept is a bit less clear cut. If the second interview is in a couple of days, that's OK, but if it's not going to be for a week or more, it could get tricky.

The thing is that while an employer is waiting for you to make up your mind, they may have another applicant 'on hold'. We send out the 'regrets' to the people we definitely don't want immediately, but we sometimes keep a couple of people 'on hold' in case our first choice says no.

steampowered

Many job offers will give you time to consider the offer and a deadline to respond. I work in a professional job and, having had a few offers recently, 2 to 3 weeks seems to be standard for my line of work.

Savvy_Sue

steampowered wrote: »

Many job offers will give you time to consider the offer and a deadline to respond. I work in a professional job and, having had a few offers recently, 2 to 3 weeks seems to be standard for my line of work.

Gosh, that seems like a long time to me! I've 'trained' my lot to have a quick turnaround between deadline for applications, shortlisting and interviews just so that people don't have time to accept other offers ...