Thursday, January 26, 2006
Job Offers Gone Bad? Well sort of!
This is the story of Brenda and Cindy. Brenda attended our first CareerBoard webinar and then retained me to be her job search coach. She received a job offer that she really worked hard to secure after about 60 days. She passed the drug test and her references were stellar.
On December 19 at 4 PM Brenda received a written job offer complete with agreed compensation and a starting date. On December 22 at 2:30 PM she received a form letter of rejection. On December 22 at 2:31 PM she had a panic attack and called me.
Was this for real? No but we had to handle it very delicately while making sure nothing had changed. Should we be contacting the woman whose name was on the offer letter or should we call messenger of bad news?
Brenda went right to the source; she spoke to the gentleman who had signed the job offer letter; she placed a phone call to confirm her starting date, indicating how she had been working on strategies to increase market share. Her new boss requested that she put them in a PowerPoint and submit sometime within her first week. She never had to mention the confusion.
Cindy had an offer with a small consulting firm owned by a highly visible female entrepreneur. In charge of business development, marketing and project management, she could see that her time to develop new accounts would be limited, thus minimizing her commission potential. So in a very logical and respectful email, she asked for a reasonable sign-on bonus. Twenty-four hours later her job offer was withdrawn on the premise that she was no longer a good fit. After a 24-hour period of shock Cindy moved on.
Although these are very unusual tales and seldom occur, both of these candidates were extremely lucky. Brenda never lost her hire and Cindy was spared a tyrannical boss.
On December 19 at 4 PM Brenda received a written job offer complete with agreed compensation and a starting date. On December 22 at 2:30 PM she received a form letter of rejection. On December 22 at 2:31 PM she had a panic attack and called me.
Was this for real? No but we had to handle it very delicately while making sure nothing had changed. Should we be contacting the woman whose name was on the offer letter or should we call messenger of bad news?
Brenda went right to the source; she spoke to the gentleman who had signed the job offer letter; she placed a phone call to confirm her starting date, indicating how she had been working on strategies to increase market share. Her new boss requested that she put them in a PowerPoint and submit sometime within her first week. She never had to mention the confusion.
Cindy had an offer with a small consulting firm owned by a highly visible female entrepreneur. In charge of business development, marketing and project management, she could see that her time to develop new accounts would be limited, thus minimizing her commission potential. So in a very logical and respectful email, she asked for a reasonable sign-on bonus. Twenty-four hours later her job offer was withdrawn on the premise that she was no longer a good fit. After a 24-hour period of shock Cindy moved on.
Although these are very unusual tales and seldom occur, both of these candidates were extremely lucky. Brenda never lost her hire and Cindy was spared a tyrannical boss.
