Job Offers Archives - Page 3 of 3

Declining a Job Offer after Accepting it ? 5 Reminders

by sincera | Apr 11, 2016 | Career, Job Offers, Managing Yourself, Office Etiquette, World of Work

So what do you do when you’ve gone through the long process of recruitment, negotiation and securing an offer, only to want to reject it? Is it acceptable? In most scenarios, declining a job offer after accepting it is just NOT acceptable. You have had several chances to not go ahead with the recruitment process in the initial stages itself. Your potential employer has selected you after screening scores of eligible candidates. This means he/she expects you to join and already has a plan ready for you. Investments, financial investments included, have been made to accommodate you and in all probability some reshuffling has also been done. However, if your reasons are truly genuine, declining an offer the right way is important. It is not just a matter of courtesy. It is also an opportunity to build your personal brand as a professional and to turn a potentially negative situation into a positive one.

This is something we experience quite often through our clients – both employers and potential employees. Keeping that in mind, we have put together five reminders for you to must-do while declining a job offer you have already accepted.

1. Declining a Job Offer – Do it ASAP:

If you have made up your mind about not taking up the job, communicate it immediately. The obligation of you keeping your word only increases with the increase in time lapse. As you get closer to your joining date, the preparations to accommodate you and to build you into the team become more resource intensive. By communicating your decision as soon as possible, you will spare the organization a lot of time, effort and resources. The best way to do this is to meet in person, or over a phone call followed by a formal email. Do not leave it at simply drafting an email. It may come across as unprofessional and insensitive, no matter what words you choose to write your email with.

2. Declining a Job Offer – State the Reason carefully:

You need to be honest, yet tactful while stating your reason for rejecting the offer after having accepted it. Communicate your reason professionally and politely. Make it more about yourself and your career goals/personal limitations than about your new prospective employer or the organization. Keep it short, keep it simple. In case there are unavoidable personal reasons for your decision, explain them to your recruiter. And it is worth repeating – be honest.

3. Declining a Job Offer – Apologize Sincerely:

The only way you will actually get around to making an apology you mean, is if you really do mean it. To be able to intend it, you need to understand that a lot of effort had been put in, which is now going to amount to naught. Let them know how sincerely sorry you are for having wasted their time and for the fact that you had to take this unfortunately unprofessional step.

4. Declining a Job Offer – Express Gratitude:

Thank your recruiter for his/her time, for giving you the opportunity that you had been looking for, even though you were not able to follow it through. Let them know that while making this decision of declining an offer has been really hard, you sincerely appreciate the time and effort that they have spent for you. Be gracious.

5. Declining a Job Offer – Don’t burn your Bridges:

Remember that it is a small world that is getting smaller everyday. It is very likely that the people that you are interacting with for a job offer that you don’t want today may hold the key to a job offer that you desperately want tomorrow. Make the effort to keep in touch. Use this as an opportunity to network. Connect with them on social media. Stay engaged and be helpful. You could even refer someone you know who may be a fit for the job to the hiring manager. By demonstrating that you do value the relationship and are willing to do what you can to help, you are keeping the door open for possibilities in the future.

Turning down job offers after accepting them is usually considered unethical and unprofessional, however, there could well be a host of reasons and circumstances owing to which this move would be inevitable for you. If you have to decline the job offer, do it with respect. Paying heed to these five things will surely help you get through the situation more smoothly than you expected.

Start-up vs Large Corporate – 5 Factors to Consider Before Leaving a Large Organisation for a Start-up

by sincera | Jul 13, 2015 | Career, Job Offers, Resignation, World of Work

Do you wish to work in a startup ? Are you secretly hating your current job but not ditching it because it pays you well ? Do you want to continue with the multi-national that pays you more than you can spend, plus the other benefits they fold into packages to woo you, or to take a dive and join or start a start-up you’ve been dreaming of since forever. We understand that it is not an easy decision to make, so we have put together this post about the five factors we think you must consider before you take the Start-up vs Large Corporate job decision.

1. Money –

You may not make as much money as you did when you start out. Worst case, you may not make any money at all in the beginning if you are one of the founders or core investors. In that case you will have to wait and watch your start-up take off before you can start reaping what you have harvested. Working in a start-up also means you may not be entitled to any additional benefits before your company starts making some profit, which may take a while.

2. Responsibilities –

Your responsibilities are not going to be linear anymore, they are going to be diverse. You may have a specific profile, however, in a start-up, on various occasions, you would be required to multitask. In a typical situation with limited funding, the resources are scarce and the to-do list is huge. Therefore, expect to work harder than you thought you would.

3. Work Environment –

The work environment at a start-up is almost definitely going to be less formal than the work environment at an established corporation. Which will work great for you if you are an easy going person who loves going to work in shorts, and maybe even dreams of sipping on a beer while working? On the flip side, if you are extremely meticulous about your work environment, the easy-going-ness of it all may scare you a little. But believe us, if anything is going to be easy-going, it’s just the work environment because you will have so much work you will be glad for the slack the lack of stringent procedures cuts you. (slack and lack just rhymed 🙂 )

4. Work life Balance –

Working at a start-up means that work life balance will be off balance. You may get calls at unearthly hours to fix a bug, and vacations may be non-existent. Weekends may not exist either. So your work becomes your life and you may have little scope to have a life outside of your work.

5. Risks –

Risks and Start-ups are synonymous. There is a huge possibility that the idea underlying the start-up may not sell and therefore bring your career stint at a startup to a grinding halt. The experience can be chaotic and you may have to do a lot of thinking on your feet. If there is any certainty when it comes to working in a start-up, it is this – there is no certainty.

Our reason for writing this post is not to dissuade you from leaving a large corporation to join a start-up. It is simply to let you know what the bargain will be. Sure, it is no easy task to conceive and work towards establishing a startup. It requires a lot of grit, courage and dedication. While life at an MNC may be stable and lucrative, working in a startup is more likely to be an actual test for your skills, or the skills you thought you possessed. It is very important to take calculated career risks and we would say, go for it, if you believe in the idea of the start-up you want to join! Just think hard before you take the plunge!

How to Answer the Question – Why did you quit your job ?

by sincera | Jul 13, 2015 | Interview, Job Offers, Resignation, World of Work

Unless the job you are interviewing for is your first one, it is a given that you are bound to be asked – Why did you quit your job? Those of us with some experience know very well how imminently complicated this question can get at times. Here are four such situations and our suggestions about how to deal with them.

Why did you quit your job – If the reason is your boss:

What you probably shouldn’t say is, “my boss was a/an *insert profanity*”. Or for that matter, anything that very obviously paints your previous boss in a bad light. Remember that it really is a small world and chances are you may be bitching about your ex-boss to one of your prospective employer’s best friends.

Also, “… for some reason most interviewers sympathize with your current boss, the psycho control freak, rather than sympathizing with you. You have to provide an answer to the question “Why do you want to leave your job?” that is mostly true but that leaves out the part about your bad experiences at your current job” says Liz Ryan, Contributor at Forbes.

Why did you quit your job – If you do not fit into the work culture anymore:

It is entirely possible for you to feel suddenly out-of-place in your work environment, where you may have so far been comfortable. A number of reasons may be the cause for this, the most common ones being dissent with your team/colleagues, replacement of your colleagues, or a general loss of interest in the kind of work the organization does.

For the above two cases, you could simply tell them that you are in search of a better work environment, and that you felt you weren’t quite in sync with it. Start with, “It’s a great place, however…” Let them know that while it was a decent place to work at, you felt you were not being able to give your 100% and hence are in the lookout for a ‘different’ work environment and culture. In discussing about what difference in work culture you seek, be careful to stick to diplomacy and not bluntly disgrace your previous work place.

Why did you quit your job – You deserve more money:

Well, who doesn’t? If your job pays you peanuts compared to the amount of work you put in, and you know you can do much better than that, you should definitely make the decision of switching jobs. However, when they ask you why you are changing jobs, try not hyperventilating about how much you worked but how little they paid you. Only when you manage to convince them of your skills and they really seem interested, start negotiating about the pay. When you have achieved that, you need not even tell them you quit because you weren’t paid enough and can get away by saying you are on the look-out for better opportunities. That way, they will not have a chance to contemplate whether you weren’t getting paid enough because you didn’t perform well enough.

Why did you quit your job – You have reached a point of stagnation at your current work place:

If you are changing your job because you feel there was no scope for growth in your previous workplace, you can say so honestly, however in a way which doesn’t sound very pompous. Be honest about the fact that the previous job did not make complete use of your skill sets and potential and that you are looking for something more challenging.

While we have listed just four situations, there are plenty of other reasons for quitting one’s job. To sum it up, in general, all we have to say is take care of two things:

Do not sound desperate (even if you are) for the new job.
Do not speak lowly of your previous boss/colleagues.

These are two ground rules while responding to the question about why you want to change your job. Play by these and you will be good to go!

What do you think? Please write to us/comment to share your difference in opinion or if you like what we wrote!

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