Hi, Welcome to the ‘Making it a Reality’ podcast. I’m Kelly Barnett, Director of the Career Development Center here at Syracuse University. I thought it might be a good thing for us to talk about how to juggle multiple job or internship offers. This is something that happens quite a bit to a lot of people so I think having a little information before it happens might help with that situation when you’re dealing with it. Sometimes you might find yourself in a scenario where you’ve applied to multiple opportunities but your first choice opportunity, the thing you want most of all, doesn’t get back to you before the other opportunities. You’re made another offer that’s not from your first choice place and you need to really be able to handle that tactfully. So what you need to do is when a company makes you an offer, you want to buy yourself some time. So we’re going to do a little bit of what I call the “sandwich method,” which means we’re going to surround the information that’s less positive with really positive information. So the first thing you’re going to want to do is express flattery and excitement. Okay, so say that you’re so flattered, you’re honored they would select you for this, and you’re excited about the opportunity. Then state something along the lines of, “I promised my family that I would run this by them before I made any official commitments,” something to that effect will work. Then ask when they need to hear back from you. Say, “When do you need my decision by?” and then you want to close with more flattery and excitement, again, “Thank you so much, I’m really excited about this opportunity, I know I could be a really good fit here,” that will buy you some time. Then what you can do is you can reach out to any company that you’ve interviewed with, maybe your first choice place and say, “Hey, I have an offer on the table from another company but you are my first choice I really can see me as a part of your team,” and then ask if there’s any way they are able to advance their timeline in terms of when they would be making a decision. Sometimes this will spur your first choice place to make a decision and that’s great you can proceed with a negotiation with them and then you can go back to the other place and say, “thank you so much I really appreciate this offer, this is an amazing company but I have to go in a different direction.” That will pretty much do it. Sometimes the first choice place choice can’t move it’s timeline ahead. So in that scenario, you have to make a tough call, so you have two choices: you can take the sure thing, the offer that you have on the table which might not be your dream opportunity or you can decline it and hope that your other opportunities might work out. Either choice could be the right one but you just have to give yourself permission to make the decision with the information that you do have, there’s a lot of unknowns but you have to just trust yourself to make the right call. You really can’t “what if” your self I think sometimes people try to consider all possible scenarios but you can do that, you will drive yourself crazy, so when you’re making this decision it is important to consider what you are getting from the offer on the table. Are you gaining experience that would make you more marketable for your next role? Will it be a solid stepping stone in your career? Are the opportunities for growth and advancement as good or are there better options? For a job, factor in that after a year it’s perfectly acceptable to look for your next position, so it’s not like you would be in this row forever. And, it usually is easier to find a job while you’re employed since it supposedly shows that you have desirable experience. However, you don’t want to take a job just to take a job. If you really can’t see yourself at the company or you wouldn’t be doing the type of work you want or just if there’s anything else that really raises a red flag and tells you this won’t be a good fit for you, don’t take it. You know don’t take a job just to take a job it needs to be something that’s going to be a good fit for you. You really have to be honest with yourself and maybe make a pros-and-cons list, you also can always call the Career Development Center here at Newhouse to talk if you need a sounding board, that’s what we’re here for. So we can always talk to you if you’re in this scenario, but just to have kind of a heads-up I’m going into it. We know that it’s a tough call but like I said before, give yourself permission to decide with the information that you do have. You don’t have as much information as you’d like, we all wish we had a crystal ball where we could look and see what other offers you would be getting in the future so that you can weigh that out a little bit better but we don’t have that so you have to make the decision on what you have at hand, information wise, and trust yourself that you’re making the right one. And like I said, the Career Development Center is always here for you if you have questions we can always talk about that then.
