I need an outside opinion.

[Mle8308]

Personally I think that's a crap way to handle it. If a company offered a person a job, they accepted, then the company came back and said "we found a better candidate", they would be hung out to dry (rightfully so).

I agree that if you get a job offer from #1, ask when can you give them a decision. I think a realistic timeline would be the end of next week.

Then, you call job #2. Tell them you have another offer, you'd like to work with them, blah blah blah, but need to know something.

As an HR director, I definitely recommend this strategy!

 

[neverlandsky]

Simple. Always choose the opportunity (job#1) over the chance (job#2).

 

[ronandannette]

Personally I think that's a crap way to handle it. If a company offered a person a job, they accepted, then the company came back and said "we found a better candidate", they would be hung out to dry (rightfully so).

I agree that if you get a job offer from #1, ask when can you give them a decision. I think a realistic timeline would be the end of next week.

Then, you call job #2. Tell them you have another offer, you'd like to work with them, blah blah blah, but need to know something.

As a hiring manager, I wholeheartedly agree with this. I must say, it wouldn't shock me to have it happen though. Covid has resulted in some very peculiar ebbs-and-flows in the labour market. It has swung like a crazy pendulum over the past year; seemingly one day tons of eligible candidates to choose from and the next, it's a competition for even mediocre talent. We're in the construction industry and we've learned the hard way, in very short order, that if we need to go past our second choice and/or if the candidate is stand-offish, we're better off just toughing it out and not making a hire. The wrong candidate (including one who is not completely happy to be here) is worse than no candidate at all.

Depends on what industry they're managing in.

Totally. That's about $64,000/year. Great money probably for retail or hospitality management but only a fair-decent wage for a senior'ish admin person in my industry. Trades and field staff (who are not on a management track) wouldn't even get out of bed for it.