Video transcript below:
Today, I’m going to show you how to use one job offer to get another and this happens all the time.
You’re interviewing for jobs and then all of a sudden, you get an offer from a company, but it’s not the one you want. You want the offer from the other company who hasn’t made a decision yet.
And the dilemma is if you don’t take this offer, you might not get the offer from the other company and then you end up with nothing and nobody wants that.
Now, if that were me and I wasn’t working and I had an opportunity to take a job versus nothing, I would definitely take the job and I have done that in the past. What you want to do is use your current offer as leverage to force the hand of another employer.
And so here’s how this works. You have to call them on the phone. You can’t just e-mail it. Do not e-mail them and say, “Hey, I have another job offer. Would you consider moving forward now?”
No, you have to talk to them. And it’s important that you talk to them on the phone, so that you can hear their response and you can adjust accordingly.
So, what you do; get along the phone and you say, “Hey, this is Don Georgevich. And I wanted to talk to you about the open position that you have. I’m really interested in it. I really like it. It’s something that I want to do. This is the company that I want to be at.
I want to work at your company. The problem is I got a job offer from a different company and it’s not exactly the place I want to be. I would rather be here”.
And then you ask them. You say, “Are you at all interested in hiring me for this position?” And just flat out ask them, “Are you interested in hiring me for this position”. One thing they might say is, “Okay, thanks for letting us know. We’ll consider that when we make a decision”. So, you might not get a response at all, basically.
Number two; the second thing they might say, “We’re very pleased with you. We liked everything we saw. We just weren’t ready to make an offer. But since you’re in the situation and we’re really interested in you and we’re going to make you an offer anyways.
We’re going to go ahead and extend an offer to you right now” and that’s perfect; that’s exactly what you want to hear.
Now, the other thing that they might say is, “We’re not ready to make a move yet. So, you might want to take that other position” and that’s the last thing that you want to hear. But in your case, maybe this is good; maybe that they chose that they’re not interested at this time. So, that kind of clears the way for you to go ahead and accept the other job.
Now, if you didn’t really have another offer and you were just kind of faking it and saying, “I have an offer” now you have nothing. Because now you can’t go back to them because they are already assuming that you’re going to take this other position. So, you have erased any hope of even working there. Makes sense?
So, does this actually work, by trying to use one offer as leverage? Yes and no. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. It just depends on that employer and how interested and attracted they are to you.
So, if you have a job offer and you want to nudge an employer to make a move on you or to at least make a decision (yes or no) then you can use this technique and it does work.
Like I said, you just have to be careful so you don’t erase any chances that you have with this company and that you don’t come across as rude or pushy or foolish.
So, the key here is you want to consider all the possibilities that could happen. And I would suggest just getting out a piece of paper and just mapping it out. “If I say this, what’s their possible response?
What might they say in return?” and just try to figure out the conversation before it even happens. Put yourself in their position. Would they be willing to make a premature move on you just because you have another offer? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. It depends on the type of position.
Now, there’s another possibility and this is one that I’ve kind of gravitated to myself a little bit. If I had a job offer and I wasn’t working, I took it; I just took it.
I’ll take it and check and I’ll start working. And what happened to me, at least twice in my career, I took another job and literally the first week I started working there, I got a call with another job offer after I had already accepted one. They called me and said, “Hey Don, we want to extend an offer to you”. And I’m like, “Wow, that’s the place I really want to be”.
So, what do you do? Well, you do what you have to do. You tell the place that you’re working at, “I’m sorry”. “I’m sorry. Another job offer came along. I wasn’t expecting it”. And you resign with regret. “I’m totally just very sorry. But this is the place you have to go”.
And it’s a hard thing to do. But I’ve done it and I was happy with my decision in the end; it made me feel better. Maybe the company wasn’t happy because they invested some time and effort in hiring me, but I had to do what was best for me and you should too. You should always do what’s in your best interest.
But I would encourage you. If you’re going to use one job offer as leverage to get another, make sure that you really have that job offer and that you understand the risks that go along with going down that path.
And if you’d like to hear more from me, head on over to jobinterviewtools.com/top10 and download my free Top 10 Questions Guide that’s going to teach you how to answer some of the more common questions you’re going to get on your next interview.
If you found this video helpful, then give it a thumbs up and make sure you subscribe to my channel, so you get notifications every time I release a new video. And by subscribing, you support me and my message in this channel. So, I utterly appreciate it. Make sure you hit ‘Subscribe’.
