Articles From the Team

Offered the job at the interview!

Have you ever been offered a job in the interview? How did you handle the situation? This month I have been working with two candidates who were offered the job in the interview. The two situations had two very different outcomes.

First, to give you a bit of background. I had one candidate who attended an interview with a great firm, the interview went well and as many of you would expect, the conversation went from a walkthrough of the CV, to about the firm and the opportunity available. The interviewer then announced that he was happy with what he saw and proceeded to say that he was going to offer the candidate the job. The next conversation was about salary with the candidate saying they wanted X and interviewer agreeing. Done and dusted. Usually I am in the one giving the news that a candidate has been offered the job, the shoe was well and truly on the other foot in this situation. Following this I spoke with the candidate who explained the events of the interview and sure enough the next call I took was from the client with the official offer. This was the perfect situation, the client was very happy and the candidate happier still. Nothing more to do other than get the paperwork out and start date agreed.

The second example is of another candidate. The candidate interviewing at an equally great firm, again was offered the job at the interview stage. They discussed the role, the salary and the culture of the firm. On the surface everything fit with what the candidate was looking for. The reality of the situation was far different. Now I’m the kind of person that doesn’t count his chickens before they hatch so I wanted to have conversations with both the client and the candidate before things were confirmed. The firm really liked the candidate and the candidate really liked the firm. The problem was the opportunity. The role was slightly different to what the candidate was seeking. This threw a spanner in the works, the job had been accepted, the client was under the impression they had a new member of the team, two days later this was no longer the case. The next conversation to have was with the client to explain the situation. This wasn’t the easiest conversation I have had but with a complete understanding of the reasoning behind the decision what to say was relatively straight forward. The client understood the situation but wanted to have a telephone conversation with the candidate to see if they could be convinced - this was not to be; the decision had been made.

The point of this blog therefore is to ask what you would do in this situation? You had a good interview; you could see yourself working there, would you go ahead and accept the job there and then? My advice while simple can be difficult to implement when the emotion in an interview allows you to get carried away. I would simply advise you to respond with something along the lines of “I would be minded to accept the role however I need some take time to process this and think about it away from the environment of the interview” which for the most part will be appreciated by the employer.

If you’re anything like me however then the best advice I can give in this situation would be to say; “Thank you! This is amazing news but as I am sure you can appreciate my partner/wife/husband/significant other (whoever it may be) would kill me if I accepted this job without first discussing it with her”. I would arguably call this my get out of jail free card and to be honest with you it has saved me on a number of occasions from committing to something that I am not entirely keen on (even if I am keen it is worth checking in any event, better to be safe than sorry after all!).

So there you have it, my get out of jail free card, so let me know what yours is? How would you handle this situation?

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