Your #Career : Is It Ever OK To Accept A Job Offer And Continue To #Interview?…Picture this Job Search Conundrum: a Job Seeker has Multiple Hot Leads in Play. One of Them Extends an Offer.
It’s Solid but Not Ideal, So the Job Seeker Tries to Hurry the Other Leads Into Additional Offers While Buying More Time to Respond to the First Offer. Eventually, that decision deadline can be pushed no further, and the other leads, while still interested, are not in a position to decide just yet.
- Should you turn down the first offer, keep interviewing and run the risk that you don’t get anything else?
- Should you accept the first offer and stop your search, forever wondering if you should have held out for something better?
- Or do you accept the first offer, continue discussions with other companies, and take something else if a better offer comes? Is it ever OK to accept a job offer and continue to interview?
In general, it is a terrible idea to accept an offer and continue to interview.
While most work agreements are employment-at-will so you can quit at any time, you don’t want to be someone who quits shortly after accepting an offer. You do want your word to mean something.
In addition, being new to any job requires transition time. If you accept a role but haven’t 100% let go of the prospect of something “better” coming along, then you’re not really giving your new employer your full attention. During the inevitable awkwardness of adjusting to the new role, work environment and culture, you are not giving your best effort, and you may be too distracted to integrate fully. Your half-hearted acceptance is thus the start of a downward spiral.
Finally, it’s a small, small world. Confidentiality is paramount in the hiring process, but so many people are involved that you can’t lock things down 100%. If your new employer finds out you didn’t break off ties with previous prospects, this breach of trust could derail your stint right from the start, if not cause your new employer to cut ties immediately.
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That said, there are legitimate reasons why you still might interview even after accepting another job.
You can get closure on the other opportunities. You see your options fully play out, since clearly this new employer is not exactly right. You might even feel better about your new employer, if the other opportunities don’t end up as you expected.
You will have to manage the confidentiality very closely – when exactly are you going to complete these other interviews? If another offer does come through and you want to accept that, you need to make as little disruption for your new employer as possible – helping them secure your replacement, or helping with messaging around your premature departure. Keep in mind that your positive gestures may be rebuffed entirely – the risk of burning bridges when you renege on an acceptance or quit shortly after starting a job is high.
So proceed with caution, whatever you decide to do.
If you turn down an offer for other imminent, but still uncertain prospects, this is the time to really step up your search, including generating brand new leads. Seemingly imminent offers have a nasty habit of disappearing. If the other offers don’t pan out, having newer leads can distract you from regretting to accept that first offer.
If you decide to accept a job that is less than ideal and stop interviewing elsewhere, then don’t drive yourself crazy with what-if scenarios. It’s easy to convince yourself that some other offer would have been better, but that’s just fantasy. Embrace the new role you do have and make a go of it. Pour your energies into doing an amazing job and into changing over time the factors of the job you were less than ideal when you accepted.
If you accept the job but continue to interview, manage your risks in the immediate term as you sort out all the different options. In the longer-term, manage your career more proactively. You felt the need to accept an offer that is less-than-ideal. Why? If you felt you had no other alternatives, shore up your network, your job search technique, and your financial foundation so you increase your capacity to think and act long-term. If you needed to get out of your current company, take a hard look about what didn’t work before and make a plan to correct any shortcomings because the problems you had before might follow you to your new employer.
Did you accept a job before your job search fully played out? What happened?