Rick Maher’s Professional Notes

This is the final post of a three part series. Check out all three posts regarding the post interview job hunt process:

1. How To: Compare Job Offers
2. How To: Negotiate Salary Out Of College
3. How To: Accept and Decline Job Offers

When faced with the opportunity to accept and or decline job offers, excitement and haste can easily come over people. If you are reading this, than you likely have avoided at least the haste… good job.

Follow a few simple steps when accepting or declining a job offer and you can score big points with your future employer or possible further down the road future employer. After all, you should look at all current job offers as a potential lead on a job offer in the future if you are declining them now.

Once you have made your decision, review one last time all of the details of the offer that you are going to accept. Know it inside and out. Especially if you are going to work for a big company, or are working through a full-time recruiter, you do not want your details to get mixed up. Once you know your offer, follow these steps to ensure that your acceptance will go smoothly, and your declines will remain civil and solidify your confidence in your decision.

First and foremost, call and accept your chosen job offer first. There would be little worse than to come to your decision, decline your other offers, than accept your choice only to find out that the offer is no longer good.

To Accept a Job Offer:

• Fill out any paper work that came with the job offer.
• Call your recruiter or contact. Make sure you actually talk to them so you know that they understand that you want the job.
• Find out what the next steps are, and act on them ASAP (i.e. returning signed paper work, drug tests, etc). This is where you can make a very good or very poor first impression.

To Decline a Job Offer:

• Call the recruiters, and say something like “I was very excited to receive your offer, but I have chosen to go a different way.”
• The recruiter will likely want ask you some questions such as why you did not choose them and where you accepted. You can be as honest with them as you wish, but be polite, and definitely do not disclose any information that the company with which you are accepting would not want you to disclose (quite possibly including the company’s name).
• The recruiter may even try to sweeten their offer at the last second to get you to change your mind. If this happens, remain calm, and use reason to decide if you are willing to reconsider. Remember, if you do reconsider and end up declining the offer that you already accepted, it is almost surely going to burn the bridge you have with that company. It is also considered highly unethical.

By following these simple steps, you can feel confident that you made the right acceptance decision, and that should things change in the future you still have a good name with a contact at the companies where you declined.

Update: Based on the popularity and success of the portion of this post relating to How To Decline a Job Offer, I have written a more in depth follow up post, More Tips on Declining a Job Offer.  That post includes why you should always call and talk to a real person to decline a job offer, what to say when talking to that person, how to follow up using a professional letter, and issues to be mindful and tactful about when you decline a job offer.