It is our job to tell them not to fret. Not to renege until after the background check is done. And not to put the new job on the LinkedIn until the new job is very confirmed. Preferably don’t put on LinkedIn until you join.
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While the survey could have been improved in many areas, they do control for broad major category. Examples are below. For “actual”, I am using NACE broad category grouping. I think there is some useful underlying information, but a more well conducted review is necessary to discern.
Computer & Information Science – Expected = $83k, Actual = $89k
Education – Expected = $75k, Actual = $47k
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Of course this cycle of reneging contributes to the decline of trust in society, since employees and employers who keep to their words and promises lose out compared to those whose words and promises mean nothing. Expect society to get poorer and more corrupt compared to its potential over time.
Burning bridges is more risky for employees than employers when the number of employers for the kind of job is small in number.
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It is one of the benefits of being born in a high SES family that you will know when (the correct answer is most of the time) you can renege, and how to renege. Let’s not make the less connected kids accept a less advantageous situation because they don’t know any better.
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Don’t really care– employers don’t take it personally, but they do track it. Anyone who gets an interview is in the company’s recruiting database, and there is a difference between someone tagged “offer declined” (person got an offer, declined the offer) and someone tagged “offer accepted then declined”. Does it matter? Only if the person hopes to work for that company at some point down the road.
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Another update, looks like she got through the first round for a start up in NYC!
Now she has till June 1st to accept her previous job offer which is not in NYC vs move through next rounds of interview for this new thing she was trying in the interim, poor kid I don’t know what she is going to decide, may be just take the job away from NYC as it is confirmed..
Love to hear your thoughts!
Thanks!
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I would take the offer on the table but I’m risk adverse!
I also think NYC is a tough place for a new grad because the cost of living is so crazy high.
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I would take the existing job offer unless it is really something she doesn’t want to do. There is no guarantee that the NYC interview process will result in an offer. At some point you just need to accept a position instead of hoping something better will come along - what if it doesn’t? A young person’s first job is just that - the first one. It won’t be forever and it doesn’t need to be perfect.
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This.
Not this:
It is a false choice. You take the current offer, and then move on and interview at other places as if that acceptance is not binding on you. Because the acceptance is not binding on you. In most states, employment is at will.
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However, it can mean burning bridges, as stated upthread:
Since the number of employers is smaller than the number of employees, the cost of burning bridges in this manner is typically higher for employees than employers, particularly if the number of employers for the type of job is small.
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You need to assess for yourself when it is worthwhile. My son’s last job offer comp is a large multiple of his first job offer. You need to assess how to navigate the process and what you are willing to burn. The answer is not always take the first offer and be done with it because it’s ok for a first job. Perhaps every 25% up is a worthwhile burn of whatever you are leaving behind. Or a qualitative difference in the nature of the work.
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I think this is a valid point.
Some sectors and industries are tiny. Some are huge. Taking a job for a school system in New Hampshire and then reneging because an offer from the Philadelphia School System comes in- zero risk. NH doesn’t care, and there are zillions of teaching jobs all over the country.
Reneging on a job for one of the only three companies which makes a specific cardiac device– if the long term goal is to work in the cardiac care medical device field– modestly risky.
Reneging on a job at Bain to work at BCG– not worth it IMHO. The firms are too similar, people have long memories.
So the specifics matter. I remember the name of every single candidate who has either ghosted me after an offer (it happens– we even check obituaries just to make sure) or reneged on an accepted offer. I’m not an especially petty person, but I am human after all.
Had one new hire who showed up for the first day of work, left for lunch (even though we were serving lunch to the entire onboarding class so they could chitchat and bond) and never came back. Even the security guards knew his name by the end of the week, we were so flummoxed that someone would go to the trouble of starting a new job and then just vanish. (theories abounded as you can imagine).
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Burning bridges to potential employers is more costly for early career people who will have more subsequent job searches than people close to retirement.
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Also, with the trend of industry consolidation and oligopolization of many sectors, burning bridges at one of many companies in the sector may not seem risky at the time, but could end up having consequences later if that company acquires or merges to become one of the few remaining companies in the sector, bringing along its “do not hire” list.
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The first time I was part of a discussion on choosing between start-up and big tech (apple and google tier) was almost 15 years ago. Since then I have known about ten newly grads facing the same choices. From their experiences I have learned that those who are happy about choosing the start-up are founders, close friends/colleagues of founders, or first small batch joining the company and contributing in a unique way, basically the irreplaceable ones. My samples are skewed because they are all IT start-ups.
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Whether risking “burning bridges” is a net negative or positive will depend on the industry sector, the structure/level of soloing of different functions in a given (potential) employer, the way you back out/resign/renege/whatever, the expectations communicated during the hiring process, and more.
There is no one answer.
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It’s a real choice. There’s legality, and then there’s ethics.
The ethical line isn’t black and white. Reasonable people will disagree about what feels right after making a commitment, and there’s a spectrum at where people draw that line.
For some, accepting a job means the search is over. Your word matters, and continuing to pursue other opportunities after accepting feels wrong, especially when it affects other people like the second choice candidate.
Others see it differently. Companies rescind offers and act in their own best interest, so job seekers should protect their own interests too.
Most people probably fall somewhere in the middle. Honoring commitments matters, but so does the first job for future career trajectory. It may come down to whether the competing job is a significantly better opportunity. How the hired applicant behaves and handles backing out, and the reasons probably matter a lot.
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Opportunities come in some random order, and as a job seeker you can’t manage this reasonably. Especially if you are looking in multiple industries, as some people do. Companies in individual industries that are competing for candidates tend to hire in clusters, especially companies that believe they are competing for the best candidates — however they define them. But companies across different industries are not coordinated. The candidate needs to manage this lack of order in when opportunities are available. People are not willy nilly reneging. But it is very important to land a good first job for so many reasons, and you have some optionality to selectively continue interviewing after your first offer, especially when you are just coming out of college and you have time before your join date. The nature of this hiring process is fundamentally different than looking for a job further along in your career. This is not commitment like a marriage.
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For most employers and most kinds of jobs, the risk of reneging on an offer is lower than for employees reneging on offers, because (for a given kind of job) the number of other possible employees is far greater than the number of other possible employers. Only if the employer does it so often that it gets a reputation by name of doing so could it suffer some kind of cost from doing so.
In other words, this is one example of the asymmetric power relationships between most employers and most employees.
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