Any thoughts

Parents Forum
21

<p>Thanks to all -- DS did prepare for the interview; talked to advisor, department chair and career services in addition to preparing possible questions to ask. What caught him off guard was the verbal offer after 3 days when he was told during the interview to expect notification in about 2 weeks. I've worked in the private and public sectors for 30 years and all of the verbal offers I made or received were understood to place the position in a "holding pattern" until the formal (written) offer was received. I've always considered it unprofessional, at least, to make a verbal offer and then not come through with a formal offer once the position is accepted -- and it is common practice to ask for and grant several days to make a decision. </p>

<p>This was a good learning experience for DS -- the disappointing thing is he really believed that the firm was one he would like to seriously consider for employment after graduation next year. For now he's crossed them off his list (what's that about cutting off your nose!). </p>

<p>LurkNessMonster, I agree and would have been upset had DS accepted and then retracted if an offer he liked better was made before receipt of a written offer by the first employer.</p>

<p>lafalum84, I figured folks would "guess" which eastern LAC DS attends -- he loves it; the school really is that perfect fit that we all read about. The profs are great, they always have time for their students (even when they really don't) and the engineering students don't seem to have any problems finding jobs or being accepted into graduate programs of their choice.</p>

22

<p>If the conversation went as you have reported to us, it's my opinion that the PM lied to your son when he said he had until the end of the week to respond.</p>

23

<p>from what I can gather, the son never actually spoke to someone, just left messages, with whom, who knows, to say he wanted the job.</p>

<p>For all we know, the woman who offered the job never got the message and assumed the applicant was no longer interested.</p>

<p>Lots of blame for the PM, but also, the applicant waited until almost the last minute, just leaving messages...did veriify that he was leaving message with correct person, did he ask if she was in the office and checking messages, did he send a fax with a signature, accepting offer....</p>

<p>Point is, just "leaving messages" for something so important is just not enough...</p>

<p>The offer came two days after interview and the applicant called back AFTER 3 days later- that's five days after interview....and he never actually made contact with the PM</p>

<p>If you can't figure out if you want this job after 5 days....I would assume you had no real interest either</p>

<p>Sure she said by the end of the week, courtesy from the applicant would be do answer asap, don't you think? and smarter as well</p>

24

<p>Seems the PM had others interested in the internship, and they answered before the son....should THAT student have been put in a holding pattern while other applicant takes their time and needs to ponder it? I would think two days after interview would have been enough to ponder it and to wait another 3 full days, seems kind of not to smart, no matter what was "verbally" agreed to</p>

<p>My H is a contractor, and if he is asked about a job, and he takes too long to come back with a price, and the person finds someone else, even though they said they would wait, well, if my H takes too long, that is his fault for risking it, no fair, sure, but that is business</p>

<p>I am not blaming the son, just saying that if something is REALLY important, you can't just "leave" messages, etc., and take your time, if you really want something, you need to go for, be confident and be prepared to say yes....</p>

25

<p>to Columbia student= in all my yrs working, living, "landlording", etc., I can tell you yes, a verbal contract is just as binding as a written one. HOWEVER they can be far more difficult to prove they exist, plus it can be difficult to prove exact terms. I think the problem in this thread is that, imo there wasn't a contract. Student was offered a job, neither accepted nor declined, but asked for more time. According to the OP, employer responded let me know by end of week. Clearly that indicates there was not an acceptance of offer. It also implies employer was willing to wait for response, but implying something is certainly not binding.
I still say its not that student was unprepared, at interview, but that student could have been better prepared. Let's remembere this student was not offered job at interview; the offer came 2 days later. With info gathered before interview and the 2 days after info, I think student should have been ready for an offer. Accept, decline, or negotiate, but thats just what i think.</p>

26

<p>Just curious (I might have missed this): why did the student wait until Thursday and Friday to call back? Was he waiting for another offer? I agree with younghoss that after initial investigation, interview and offer, it might have seemed like lack of real interest. Don't you go to an interview hoping for and prepared for an offer?</p>

27

<p>My H and I were discussing this situation last night at dinner. We had very different perspectives on what happened. I was horrified by the OP's description. I work in a technical field, for a well-known organization that has extensive co-op and internship opportunities reaching down to high school. It's very common for people to spend decades here, if not their entire career. H, on the other hand, works in a different field where people bounce around from employer to employer. He was far more cynical, saying that the OP's son should have just told the PM "yes" right off the bat in order to lock in the offer, and then tell them later "no thanks" if you change your mind if you get a better offer, because the employer will do the same to you in a heartbeat. So now I don't know if I'm more horrified at the PM mentioned by the OP, or my husband, or the HR professionals in my husband's field.</p>

<p>Assuming that the OP's son reported this back to the career center and the department, it seems as if one of two things should happen. If this type of hiring behavior is unusual, then why wouldn't the school take action against the firm by telling them that they'll be taken out of the internship pool? The internship is supposed to be a win-win for school and firm; they should ideally be working together to make this a positive first step into the professional world for the students. Isn't there some kind of agreement between the school and the firm on the etiquette of hiring and extending offers? It's got to be fairly common for a student to be waiting on several possible internship opportunities. Seems to me that either the employer recognizes that and allows a few days for a response, or the employer tells the student flat out that they need a response immediately. </p>

<p>If, on the other hand, the OP's experience is SOP, then the career center needs to do a better job of educating the students up front about what to expect and how to respond. After all, they told the OP's son to expect a two-week wait between interview and offer. If the game rules have changed for hiring in the OP son's field, then it's better for everyone if the school lets their students know preemptively. Especially since there seem to be a lot of parents who are just as flummoxed by this as the student!</p>

28

<p>Sl love and her husband certainly have 2 very different opinions. I have difficulty with his advice. I would not recommend to any student or to my son to give his word to an employer if he didn't mean it. The idea of going ahead and give your word but if something else comes up, its ok to renege because- hey- the employer might do it? I don't agree with that way of thinking. I'm no pie in the sky naive dreamer kid, I'm 50 yrs old and know not all share my desire for integrity. Nevertheless I'd recommend to any student/young adult to choose a path of integrity, even though others may not.</p>

29

<p>remember this wasn't a Verbal Contract!!! A contract needs TWO sides to make it binding....what the student got was the chance to wait til the "end of the week"....and after 3 days, he "left a message" that he wanted the job...that is NOT a contract...it was an "offer" that the Ops son, for whatever reason, was unable to accept for more than 3 days, in fact 5 days...I think intergrity would have been to not wait until the last minute to make a decision....so the job had to be filled by Friday at 5pm...should the person sit there until 445?</p>

<p>Seems the OPs son didn't much care about the job...becuase if after 5 days he still was unsure...and all he did was leave some voice mails, and isn't even sure if the person got them, well...seems it wasn't all that important</p>

30

<p>and I don't think the OP son should have accepted the offer, thus creating the contract, and then renig....however, I don't think the OPs son should have waited so long either...
by the end of the week, well, that is pretty vague...and again if you don't know after 5 days, something you say you researched, etc....means you don't really want it that bad</p>

<p>When my D was interviewing for internships, she went in prepared to say, yes, I will take it...she had her schedule...I also wonder why it toook the son so long to want to take the offer...what was he pondering...</p>

31

<p>citygirlsmom: I was in environmental/scientific consulting for 24 years and am aware of what accepted business practices were 6 years ago (not retired but now with gov't agency). Just wondering if DS's experience is common now, indicating a change in practices. In my experience, if I offered a position to someone, I expected a request for a few days to decide. If I said "OK," I honored that promise. If an immediate answer was required, I made that clear up front. DS asked for 3 days and was given 4 days -- when I was a PM in a hiring mode and not in the office, I checked messages a couple of times a day and, yes, DS was calling the correct number. Did the PM require an immediate answer? I doubt it -- the company, a major gov't contractor, was interviewing for interships for the following 2 weeks and work would not begin until mid-May. Since this is at the beginning of the internship interview season, I suspect the PM wanted to fill her need before other companies started interviewing.</p>

<p>lkf725: DS wanted to make sure he was making the correct decision -- a friend had accepted his first offer last year right a way and had a bad experience with the company. Yes our son has other applications out there but interviews won't begin until March, so there was very little chance that a "better" offer would be received in 2 or 3 days. "Don't you go to an interview hoping for and prepared for an offer?" I don't agree with that, I go into an interview with questions and try to decide if the position would be a good fit for me if an offer were forth coming. When being the PM, I'm usually pretty sure that the individual is technically qualified (if he/she wasn't, why waste the time) and just want some clarification, provide additional information, a assure myself that the candidate would be a good fit. As the PM, I can't make the offer, that's got to come from HR.</p>

<p>SlitheyTove: I agree with younghoss. My profession has a written code of ethics and for me to accept (or make) a verbal offer and then reneg if a better offer came in before the written offer would be, at a minimum, unprofessional and border on unethical. I'm certainly not naive, but if that's what the consulting business has turned into, I'm glad I got out 6 years ago!</p>

32

<p>^^^Oh, I agree entirely that what my H was suggesting was unethical. When we were arguing about it at dinner, I said it was as if Miss Manners said it was OK for you to accept an invitation, and then turn it down because something "better" came up. My point was that different fields may have different modus operandi for hiring. Since my field is more similar to your son's, I think that my view of the situation (horror) is more accurate. I generally think my view of situations is more accurate, but for some odd reason not everyone sees it that way ;) Other fields may be highly competitive for internships. Maybe interviewing was like offering to buy a house a year or two ago--if you went to look, you'd better be prepared to make an offer. Maybe students in some fields need to go to an interview prepared to accept an offer immediately. Dunno, that's not the way it is in my field.</p>

33

<p>Your son had 5 days to make a decision, left "message" had not real contact with the person, who made what appears to be a strategic business deciision.</p>

<p>And we are not to decide what the PM was dealing with at her company, lots of assumptions about her need to feel the job...sure she should have may told son, Can't wait for you to make up your mind and hymm and haw...</p>

<p>Do you think that your son handled this well? Do you think he should have waited upwards of 5 days to decide, do you think leaving messages was enough? Do you think he did ALL he could to contac this person? Did he REALLY want this position? And did HE have all his assumptions correct in what he thought was the timeline? Is he going to make his life decisions because of what happened to each and every friend? is he going to show some concern for what the OTHER side of the table might be dealing with?</p>

<p>You suspect the PM wanted to fill her positions before the good applicants were grabbed up...gee, that seems kind of smart</p>

<p>I think the problem here lies in the assumptions made by both sides, the son just taking his sweet time getting back to the PM, even if she gave a casual 'end of the week" deadline</p>

<p>In this competitive world, with more people applying for fewer jobs, you can't just sit around, going, hmmmm....and then wonder why your lost out</p>

<p>Was the PM to quick to fill the spot maybe, but she is not the only one to blame here</p>

34

<p>
[quote]
Two days after the interview he received a call from a Project Manager with a verbal offer. DS responded that he didn't expect a call so soon and would like 2 or 3 days to think about it (check with his advisor, etc.). The caller said she'd like to know by the end of the week (4 days distant). After 3 days DS called several times and left VMs saying he was really interested please call so they could finalize things. Called several times the next day (Friday) and left the same message. On the following Monday he received an email (no return call) saying someone else was subsequently offered the internship and accepted. DS spoke to his Dep't Chair and then called the PM for an explanation that turned out to be something like, "The telephone call was just a verbal offer, a formal written offer would have come if you had accepted the position, I needed to fill it so I kept looking even though you asked for a few days to make a decision [and I agreed to the request]."

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It's reasonable to expect a couple of days to make this decision. Your son asked for two or three days, and the PM offered to allow him until the end of the week. Your son called several times Thursday (a day earlier than the outside limit) and left VMs. He then called Friday and repeated the messages. I don't understand the point of saying he could do more then leave voice mails. He tried several times to contact the person, and unless this company is in his town, he most likely had no other means of contacting the PM. From your information, he clearly acted within a reasonable time frame, and if this was not acceptable to the PM, that person should have told your son so, at the beginning. I suppose the one thing he could take away from this experience is to be sure to show an enthusiastic response to a job offer, even if needs a couple of days to consider all of his options. I personally don't believe the PM acted ethically.</p>

35

<p>there are many ways to contact someone, beside their own phone number...you call the office they work in and ask if they are available, if they have an assistant, you track them down, you fax in a letter of acceptance, at least that way you have something in "writing"</p>

<p>there is so much dependency on technology and phones and email, that common sense gets lost- we assume the techonology is working, and gee it fails all too often</p>

<p>Of course you can do more than leave voice mails...what if this person was out of town, and for some reason wasn't getting her messages...and didn't know it? that happens a lot more than you realize</p>

<p>So, the applicant shouldn't have just left voice messages....did he leave a message with a person- someone in that office? did he call her department and ask a physical person if she was available? </p>

<p>Unless he spoke to a real live human being, leaving VMs is just not trying hard enough or common sense</p>

<p>Now if he left a message with a collegege, an assistant, anybody, that would be something</p>

<p>And this is a major company, so there were numerous ways to be sure you were doing all you could.</p>

36

<p>I knew you'd disagree with me cgm..;)</p>

<p>However, I disagree with you, so were even..:)</p>

<p>The PM never said she didn't get the numerous messages. Actually, she made it pretty clear that she made the job offer to someone else, within the time frame that she had allowed the boy to make up his mind, so I don't think the VMs were the issue at all. That's why my conclusion is that the PM did not ethically.</p>

37

<p>here is how it works:</p>

<p>Hello, My name is bob and I am looking to contact Ms. PM. I have left here a couple of voice messages about a position she offered me, saying I would like to accept it. Is she available? I just want to make sure she is getting the information that I would like to accept the position. Do you know if the messages have gotten through? She said to contact her asap. and I tried earlier today, and just want to be sure she has received notification of my interest (say this after you have left two messages with no response- if there is a problem with the VM, this person will hopefully follow through with at least a written note to the PM)</p>

<p>or (if after you recieve Vm for the second time)</p>

<p>Hello, </p>

<p>My name is Bob and I am trying to contact Ms. PM. I keep getting her voice mail, and this is a timely issue regarding a job offer she made to me. Do you know if she is available, and what is the best way to let her know I accept the offer? (this way you can find out if she is in town, if there is something wrong with the phone system and that at least you have made contact with another human being who might indeed have some valuable information and can assist)</p>

<p>to say leaving VM is just not enough in this day and age with so much competition</p>

<p>we have kids saying, oh but I sent an email, and I haven't heard back yet...well, following through inwhatever other way you can if the way did try didn't seem to be working</p>

<p>(she said by the end of the week- the son assumed that meant friday at 5?- if he was really intersted, he would have responded before the deadline- as I said the PM should have maybe said, snooze you can lose to the applicant, but he didn't do much for himself here did he- unethical or not, the applicant wasn't very asute nor timely himself- he made mistakes, and you know, that could have been a signal to the PM that maybe he wasn't the best applicant</p>

<p>He wasn't prepared to take the job....no denying that...she found someone who was</p>

<p>And I wonder what the exact conversation was between the two, and if the applicant was really clear on the deadline</p>

<p>my point is, why did the applicant take 5 days? If my math is correct, he was interviewed on a Friday/Saturday...offered job on a Monday, and contacted PM almost a week after initial interview...was he smart?</p>

38

<p>Well, my opinion is that the PM represents her company just as this boy represents himself, and possibly his school.</p>

<p>If she had a sudden emergency, her responsibility is still to represent her company as an ethical employer. By allowing the boy to the end of the week to make his decision, she should not have offered this job to somebody else in that time period. I agree with you that we need to not be dependent on VM, but that was the mode of communication the PM and boy were using, and he had no reason to expect that the PM would hire someone during the period she allotted him to make a decision. From the sound of it, she did get his messages, because otherwise, I feel she would have mentioned that to his advisor.</p>

<p>
[quote]
"...I needed to fill it so I kept looking even though you asked for a few days to make a decision [and I agreed to the request]."

[/quote]
</p>

39

<p>There is an old adage about those who hesitate.</p>

40

<p>Some posters here agree the student wasn't fully prepared, a couple feel student did all he could. If I were going for a job interview, and had done some investigation as any prudent prospective employee should do....
Whether the job was lifegaurd, dock worker, or executive v.p., I'd have specific questions in mind. Whats the pay? What are working hours? weekends? Benefit plan? When does it start? How many hours week? etc. I'd then try to think what I'm looking for. What do I consider a must-have? What is extra gravy? By thinking ahead what might be offered, and deciding what I need/want in advance, that helps make me fully prepared. If I were to go in an interview not having any idea what I would or would not accept isn't being fully prepared. Certainly if employer offered me some condition completely unforseeable, then I might need more time.</p>