First internship interview coming up; wanting to keep other options open (electrical engineering)

chrisw
Tue, 30 Dec 2014 14:23:53 +0000

You are not an ingrate for wanting a longer time frame to make a decision, if you are given an offer. There are a couple of things to consider here.


What is your school’s policy on offer timeframes? At mine, companies were not allowed to recruit on campus if they gave “exploding” offers (i.e. saying you have 48 hours to decide); rather, they were given a timeframe in which they can set offer expiration dates, and they usually stuck to that. Lockeed, as a reputable company, is not likely to give you an exploding offer, and if they give you one that expires in early February, the polite response is to thank them and ask for an extra week so you could make an informed decision. Hiring interns is costly, and as much as you burn bridges by reneging on an accepted offer, they don’t want to run that risk by not giving you adequate time to decide.
It isn’t entirely uncommon to have the interview situation you have - if they are not doing an official recruitment period at your school, it is more costly to fly someone out to you than it is for you to fly to them (they lose productivity while traveling, but if their people aren’t going anywhere, no productivity is lost). You obviously passed their phone screen, so I wouldn’t worry about it.
Regarding relocation, I wouldn’t worry about that until an offer comes. They may assume that you know relocation is part of the packages; they may want you to work at a local site; they may have you do work remotely and fly you to their site when needed.


Congrats on the interview and good luck with your search!