I also want to say that it is girls that feel more obligation than they need to about these career commitments, and take less career risk than boys, and therefore achieve less career success than they are deserving by staying in jobs longer when they are not happy, or not looking for other opportunities when they are not happy with the current one. If we are pretending to give good guidance, it is the girls that need to be encouraged to look out more for themselves in these matters.
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Given that the interview process isn’t linear I can understand following through on other opportunities even after accepting an offer. But, at some point a young person needs to stop that process and get started with a job, even if it isn’t perfect.
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The job start date is usually sometime between July and August of the year the young person is going to graduate. Interviews start from the previous years’s april. If another opportunity were to show up in October, you can ignore it because you have something lined up for next August, or go take a look at the October opportunity. You can do it either way. You don’t need to turn down the October opportunity because you are not holding up starting somewhere else. That start date is fixed for next July / August anyway.
The calendar is going to differ radically by field.
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Absolutely. But there is usually some time between the time a new grad offer is made and the time the new grad is expected to join — often several months.
If one had started the application process at another company before accepting a position at a different organization, I understand continuing that process. And if it results in a situation like this:
then one can go to the offer you accepted and explain that you’ve received another offer for $X more and see if they want to compete or if you should decline.
In that type of situation I suspect that bridges are unlikely to be burned and it’s also helpful to the company to know what competitors are offering (even if it’s a different industry but seeking the same skill set).
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Sometimes (often) you know they won’t / can’t match. Then you politely withdraw, and don’t offer any numbers. Give some reasonable reason. In this particular example the company said if things change, please come back. They may not consider us seriously if we do go back, of course. And we anticipate not going back. I told my son that one choice is to not renege until the join date — but we decided that that is impolite, and the company should have time to offer someone else.
Yes, a company that hired someone at $50k is unlikely to increase their offer to $100k or $150k. But the employer will be much more understanding and not feel as though the person is callous, thoughtless, or whatever pejorative adjective you prefer. It’s the not burning bridges piece, AND it provides a service to the organization that originally offered one a job. So yes, one is not likely to stay with that initial employer but you’re leaving with a sense of goodwill between the company and the potential employee. Frankly, it seems more like a win-win than a loss-loss situation for folks who withdraw after accepting an offer.
ETA: I see your edit with the additional info for your son’s situation.
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“ I also want to say that it is girls that feel more obligation than they need to about these career commitments, and take less career risk than boys.”
True, definitely I have exhibited that pattern.
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True, with lots of supporting data. Data also show women will only apply to jobs where they meet the vast majority of listed criteria, but men will apply if they meet far fewer criteria (and be successful in said app.) Here’s one study: Breaking Through the Self-Doubt That Keeps Talented Women from Leading | Working Knowledge
Separately, regarding ‘burning bridges’, I just don’t understand why adults who are involved in hiring would penalize someone for reneging on an offer (assuming it was done respectfully.) Why let emotion rule the day?
If the candidate were a strong enough candidate to get an offer, they would likely still be a good candidate should they become available in the future and/or change their mind. I was involved in hiring decisions in consulting, and for example, we had candidates decide they wanted to work in industry first, or employees even leave our firm for an industry role. We always welcomed them back with open arms when they called to say their industry job was…lousy. Our end goal was to have strong employees who wanted to be there…and sometimes that route wasn’t linear.
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S22 will finish next May in engineering. We were talking about when he should start looking. I see here someone said he should have started a month or two ago. We look at job listings and none indicate when a start date or even year would be. At my husband’s company, they hire engineers as they need them, including entry level. His group hired a new hire this past April to start after graduation of this year. He says they have never hired even 6 months ahead, let alone a year.
S22 is wondering how to know if he should apply or not if the listing doesn’t even indicate a starting timeframe. He doesn’t want to waste anyone’s time apply in September if they want someone starting before May.
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My D’s company gives return offers in August at the end of the internship/co-op season and does recruiting for new hires in early Fall. Purdue does their job fair in September. There is a second fair in January for engineers but that is usually for co-ops/internships and not full time post grad positions.
H’s company also does their hiring for full time roles in early Fall.
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In the fields in which my son applied, he thought that if he didn’t apply within two days of a job posting, then likely there is no point applying anymore, because there will have been a flood of applications that would have come in during the two days, and the company had no bandwidth to deal with the late applications. In his case most of the hiring for next May has closed by this November or so. Usually starts this July or August. In some extreme cases hiring starts this April / May for companies that need to hire a large class — tech/consulting/finance. I heard Pharma hiring is in the spring semester before graduation.
We are a 40 person company that posted one job and got 400 resumes in 48 hours from good schools and from kids with high GPAs.
@tsbna44 should have some idea about engg recruitment because his son went through this 3 years ago.
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Yes, the career fair is in September for him as well. and asking there makes it easier. But if he sees a posting today that sounds like a good fit, should he apply and assume they are looking for next July? Or even that they will wait until next July?
I’m going to ask some friends. I know a lot of engineers across a variety of companies, but nearly all are automotive, so not a lot of industry variation.
He’d agree with the timeline of the posting to applying. So did he find that jobs posted now would say “hiring for August 2027” in the job description? We have not seen that, so are assuming they are hiring for now. I just looked again and don’t see any that specify “now” or “future” or anything specific for a start date.
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In big finance and consulting, and most reasonable to big sized tech, job postings that I see now will be for 2027. I am less sure about engg. Certainly engg from July will be for 2027.
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Even putting “2027” into Indeed, doesn’t give me listings that show that. My husband’s company is hiring new engineers and wants them now, not in a year. They have work that needs to be done and can’t wait for 13 months to have people.
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What engg major is your son in?
IIRC, his son did job searching on Indeed.
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Yes. May have also applied directly