URGENT: accepting internship offer
So I'm in a little dilemma: I got an internship offer a few days ago with less than a week to sign/accept. I like the position and company, but it wasn't my top choice in other aspects like location. I've done another final round interview but I don't think I'll get the outcome until after the deadline. At this point in the search process, I obviously don't want to give this offer up.
I did a google search on different forums and found that some people said 1) ask the company to give me an extension to the offer. However, this company seems strict with the deadline and I don't want them to rescind it or look badly upon me for asking since they'll think they're not my top choice, or even 2) sign and then retract if I get a better offer. That obviously has some ethical points..
So what do I do? I already contacted the firm I interviewed with to ask for an expeditied decision, but I don't think the decision will come before the deadline.
Accepting the offer? Ask for an offer deadline extension?
If you know what you want, go after it. If you don't know what you want then take whatever you can get to figure out what you want
How much time do you have left? I would suggest one final call to your first choice office today, explain to them that the deadline is coming up in a few hours and you'd really like to work for them, but without an offer from them you feel you need to take the bird in the hand. If they jerk you around, take the offer you already have... if they want you, they should be willing to expedite hiring by a few days.
I have until Monday night for the offer.
Make the call Monday before lunch and take NuckFuts advice on leveraging your current offer.
I'd suggest throwing out this fallacy of ethics in recruiting. Why? Well, it is certainly not being reciprocated at the firm level in the financial services industry.
Trust and ethics are a two-way street; anecdotally and empirically, I have seen acquaintances (during recruiting period / post-internship period / during entry-level jobs) getting jerked around by firms. We (United States) do not work in a corporate structure (a la Japan's patriarchal structure) where firms (especially in financial services) will have any duty of loyalty to their employees.
For observations of financial service firms reneging on recruits, Kevin Roose's, Young Money, offers some examples.
So, that leaves us with the payoffs of option 2. This should not be a question of ethics, but one of risk tolerance. I'll let you decide...:
Upside of reneging: I'm assuming your first-choice offer has one or more greater elements of job function prestige / brand name prestige / location prestige and thus, will give you a greater chance of having a steeper career trajectory. Given the near-infinite degree of variables out of your control during your career, being able to create a steeper initial career trajectory could compound into massive intermediate and later career gains.
The downside for you of reneging is the very small (but very devastating) chance that the reneged firm tells the accepted firm that you reneged and then the accepted firm drops you. However, taking a step back and assessing the landscape, interns are pretty much warm bodies. Your real value is on par or less than the administrative assistants. Yes, you will probably hurt some egos, but it's not like you lost somebody money. They will (probably) forget about you.
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