After interviewing for Company 1 this morning, I was instantly offered the job and asked to come in on Tuesday to sign the contract and get started. I received a phone call a few minutes ago from another company (Company 2) which I interviewed for last week that I have received a job offer but they’d like to see me once more also on Tuesday. I want to speak to Company 2 once more before accepting either one of the two offers. I would have been very happy with one offer but now that I have two, I have to tell Company 1 that I’d like to see Company 2 before making a decision and won’t be able to come in and sign the contract on Tuesday. How can I handle this situation without upsetting Company 1 and potentially losing the offer?
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Did you and Company 1 already go through salary negotiations? From what I understand (I have not gone through this process a lot yet), it’s highly unusual for a job offer to come that soon. That doesn’t mean they’re bad, they could just be desperate, or the hiring manager is inexperienced and/or untrained. I only ask because if you’ve already gone through negotiations, then you’re at a slight disadvantage. I would simply tell Company 1 that you’re thrilled about the offer, but you have another interview that you need to follow through with before making a decision. This is as much for your own benefit as it is a professional courtesy to Company 2 who have taken the time to interview you and should be able to counter offer. If you have two companies who are actively pursuing you, then you have quite a bit of leverage in negotiations, so you can strike the balance between pay, benefits, and simply personal preference.
If Company 1 has any experience in hiring, it shouldn’t be a shock or insult to them that you’re looking at more than one offer. If they get pushy, you’ll have to make a call, but if you’ve got two offers out of the gate then I wouldn’t be worried about your future prospects.
This isn’t an easy thing to deal with, but still, congrats!
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Congratulations - you are in a very enviable position. I would not respond to either of these companies until you read these articles:
The guy who wrote these went from not even being able to get interviews to getting a $250k offer from Airbnb through persistent negotiation.
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