Do You Pull The Offer If They Don’t Accept Immediately?

More to this than you’d think.

We got into an argument. A couple weeks ago, in one of our brainstorming sessions, the team couldn’t agree on one topic: 

????Is it ok to pull an offer if a job seeker doesn’t accept immediately?

(By ‘immediately’ we’ll say 24-36 hours.)

The reason why? It’s a far more nuanced topic than it appears on the surface.

Your first reaction will be based on your own personal experience (as a job seeker or hiring manager.) Which may be completely different to other real world scenarios.

It comes down to empathy and transparency.

Let’s say you, the company, are completely up front about your process and time frames.

The candidate tells you from the start they’re evaluating multiple companies. They want to make the best decision. Their time frames are clear. 

In that scenario? Yeah, pulling the offer feels petty. They’re in a stressful life situation, they’ve kept you in the loop. There are no unknowns. It feels like you took it personally.

But there’s also a flip side. Those gotchas where the transparency wasn’t real. “Oh I had something come up last minute.” But you can clearly tell they’re shopping your offer to negotiate elsewhere.

Meanwhile, you’ve got 3 other candidates you could hire and business deliverables you need to hit.

Transparency works both ways. If you, the company, weren’t clear about your time frame and process, can you expect someone to jump on board right away?

There’s a lot of other great companies out there. Great talent too. 

You’re not the only one.

Full episode of The 10 Minute Talent Rant, episode 55 “There’s Nothing Wrong With Being Someone’s 2nd Option” here.

James Hornick

Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.