You worked hard on your resume and interview skills. Your hard work resulted in some good job offers. You made your Follow-up Visits and evaluated each offer. You have decided which offer you're going to accept. Let's make sure you close the loops on your job search effort, for at least two reasons:
- Ethics: The Principles for Professional Conduct of the College Placement Council indicate that students have an ethical obligation to advise all those employers who have extended job offers of their accept/ reject decision. The Principles codified an opinion generally shared by both college career professionals and corporate personnel.
- Professional pragmatism: Your good name is one of your strongest assets in building a career. Become known as a considerate person. First, don't leave those you're going to reject waiting for a response. Uncertainty complicates their hiring efforts. Second, thank everyone with whom you met during your job search process. They earned your thanks, and you don't want to become known as an ingrate. Whether for better or for worse, you never know when you'll run into the same people again.
If you haven't already given an oral acceptance at your Follow-up Visit (remember, many people do not), call the person who extended your offer.
Tell him or her that you are delighted with the offer and that you accept it. Indicate that you will send a written acceptance without delay. In your brief letter of acceptance, you should do at least the following:
- Thank the firm for your job offer
- Review the basics: job title, starting date, location, and compensation terms
- Express your excitement about starting your career at that firm
- Indicate how and when any documents requested by the firm will be delivered
Rejecting a Job Offer
Once you have accepted a job offer, you should contact all other firms still considering you for employment and remove yourself from the process. The reasons are again related to ethics and professional pragmatism:
- Ethics: Employers need to know where they stand with students, just as you needed to know where you stood with prospective employers. By withdrawing from the process, you clarify the hiring picture for the employer and enable the firm to proceed more expeditiously with offers to other students.
- Professional Pragmatism: Firms do not like to have their time wasted or to look foolish pursuing a candidate who has already accepted a job. (It's like asking someone for a date who is already engaged.) Protect your reputation by advising each employer, by phone and brief letter, that you no longer wish to remain under consideration. Slighting people today may come back to haunt you tomorrow.
- Thank you for the offer of employment {or, for considering me for employment)
- I have decided to accept another offer
- The firm's time and consideration are appreciated
If you followed my advice throughout this article, you will have sought and received help from many individuals in the course of your job search. For example, remember how Aunt Millie helped David by putting him in touch with her friend Sheila? Now that David has accepted a job, he should contact both Aunt Millie and Sheila, to thank them and keep them abreast of his job situation. Presumably, David can just pick up the phone and call his aunt. For Sheila, a quick note may be more appropriate.
There are two reasons for David (and you) to thank those who were helpful in the job search:
- Courtesy: It never goes out of season.
- Professional pragmatism: If you stay in touch with people when you don't want something from them, they are more likely to be helpful when you do need something.
Usually, when we think of someone writing his or her memoirs, we picture a senior citizen, at the close of a career, looking back over a fruitful life. I suggest that you write your job search memoirs before your career actually begins. They will be a resource to make your next job search easier, and you may need a list for 'moments like these.'
A Resource for Next Time
Your memoirs should include
- The name, professional affiliation, and phone number of everyone whom you met with during your job search. Include your informational meetings, interviews, and Site Visits, even if the firm did not extend you an offer.
- Save your SSP, your various charts (twin peaks, research), and copies of your letters. Some of the information they contain may be directly helpful in the future. At a minimum, they will help you see how you've changed or grown when you look back on them.
- Outline the steps you took in your job search; you may be taking similar steps in the future.
Most people experience a period of unhappiness on a job. The workload becomes too heavy; compensation is less than a friend's; the boss is a grouch; the commute is too long; someone else got a coveted promotion; the weather is lousy. At times like these, it's easier to bear up under the strain if you have a list detailing the reasons you chose to come to that employer in the first place. When you ask yourself 'What Am I Doing Here?' your List of Positive Reasons for wanting the job will help counterbalance the negative experiences you're going through.
I am not suggesting that you stay with any given job forever. I am saying that you should try to see your job in a reasonable perspective, and your List of Positive Reasons can be very helpful.
A Job and Marriage
Throughout this article, I have drawn an analogy between the job search process and social relations. We said, for example, that a job offer is like an offer of marriage.
I am not a marriage counselor, but I am a happily married man. Let me give you this piece of unsolicited, nonprofessional advice.
Before your wedding, while you're still aglow with romance, write a Love List of all the good reasons why you love and are marrying your Significant Other. Then, if you go through a time when everything seems to be going wrong, pull out your Love List. By reminding yourself of the positives in your relationship, you'll put things in a more realistic perspective--a good remedy for keeping your marriage healthy and alive.
