Does (verbally accepting an offer) count as reneging?

I am in trouble at my school for reneging on an offer that I said yes to verbally.

I DID NOT sign anything accepting the offer.

I thought reneging meant signing an official document accepting an offer and then saying no to it.

22 Comments
 

who cares. do what is best for you. if that involves renegging on a previous offer to go get another one that is better for you, do it.

If it's UBS, etc. (you get the idea) you could just tell them that you are indefinitely deferring your employment (see: comp deferral)

Question: tell the school to go fuck themselves. (actually not a question)

"They are all former investment bankers that were laid off in the economic collapse that Nancy Pelosi caused. They have no marketable skills, but by God they work hard."
 

Like the poster above, schools care about their rep which comes from the preparedness and behavior of their students. If an employer gets pissed they will choose not to return next year which the school does not want.

In my opinion, you dropped tens of thousands on bullshit credit hours and books these professors updated every year and required you to have so do whats best for you. Markets change. Your market did and if the roles were reversed they would drop you like a bad habit. Fuck what some OCR department says in an email. It's your life.

 

Is this for FT or SA? I'm guessing SA

Although I agree with the "do what's best for you", you need to be very careful about how you handle yourself during SA recruitment. If you renege on a company and your school finds out, they may blacklist you from FT OCR, which is a pretty big deal. It's happened in the past

If it's for FT, then obviously you should choose what's best for your career. Reneging is still frowned upon, but the negative ramifications, especially from your school, are significantly reduced.

 

Its deceptive to accept an offer while continuing to interview at other firms.

Imagine that a company offered you a position, then rescinded the offer before your start date because they found a "better" candidate. Would you ever want to work the people there? Would you ever trust the people there?

Now I'm sure that this does occur (for both sides), but it doesn't change the fact that its fundamentally deceptive. If I were the hiring manager for one of the "other" companies, I would probably ding you and notify the company that extended the initial offer.

 

They would do it to you. Do what is best for you. People have a short memory and sometimes I feel like people on this board forget that.

"They are all former investment bankers that were laid off in the economic collapse that Nancy Pelosi caused. They have no marketable skills, but by God they work hard."
 
BearearnsI have seen candidates not pass background checks... so until deal is done anything can change. Happens all the time with lawyers and finance that deals dont close and things change. Until name is dotted and crossed. It is fair game in my opinion,but it definitely isnt honest faith.

I disagree with your analogy here.

A deal that fails because of execution risk (such as when a company can't raise debt because it can't obtain equity commitments in time, etc) is different from a deal that fails when a client decides to close the deal with another law firm / bank. The difference here is intent. In the former case, the company does not intend to cause the deal to fail whereas in the latter case it does.

The former case to me is the equivalent of a life changing circumstance for the candidate or a failure to meet a basic requirement (e.g. criminal background check). The latter case is the equivalent to a candidate reneging on his/her acceptance.

 
TheBlackSheep
BearearnsI have seen candidates not pass background checks... so until deal is done anything can change. Happens all the time with lawyers and finance that deals dont close and things change. Until name is dotted and crossed. It is fair game in my opinion,but it definitely isnt honest faith.

I disagree with your analogy here.

A deal that fails because of execution risk (such as when a company can't raise debt because it can't obtain equity commitments in time, etc) is different from a deal that fails when a client decides to close the deal with another law firm / bank. The difference here is intent. In the former case, the company does not intend to cause the deal to fail whereas in the latter case it does.

The former case to me is the equivalent of a life changing circumstance for the candidate or a failure to meet a basic requirement (e.g. criminal background check). The latter case is the equivalent to a candidate reneging on his/her acceptance.

How in the world does a candidate fail a criminal background check?
 
Best Response
A Fellow Linguist
TheBlackSheep
BearearnsI have seen candidates not pass background checks... so until deal is done anything can change. Happens all the time with lawyers and finance that deals dont close and things change. Until name is dotted and crossed. It is fair game in my opinion,but it definitely isnt honest faith.

I disagree with your analogy here.

A deal that fails because of execution risk (such as when a company can't raise debt because it can't obtain equity commitments in time, etc) is different from a deal that fails when a client decides to close the deal with another law firm / bank. The difference here is intent. In the former case, the company does not intend to cause the deal to fail whereas in the latter case it does.

The former case to me is the equivalent of a life changing circumstance for the candidate or a failure to meet a basic requirement (e.g. criminal background check). The latter case is the equivalent to a candidate reneging on his/her acceptance.

How in the world does a candidate fail a criminal background check?
By being a criminal.
"After you work on Wall Street it’s a choice, would you rather work at McDonalds or on the sell-side? I would choose McDonalds over the sell-side.” - David Tepper
 

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