One offer expires Friday, the other company hasn't even finished my final round. How do you buy time?
Recruiter A wants an answer in three days. Recruiter B says they're "moving fast", which so far means next week sometime. I don't want to lose something real chasing a maybe, and I equally don't want to sign and spend a year wondering. Has anyone asked a company to accelerate, or asked for an extension, without coming off flaky? Mostly looking for what the wording actually was.
3 comments
- 0
AnonymousAnon You can ask B to accelerate and it isn't rude, recruiters field this constantly.
What worked for me was giving the actual date instead of saying soon: "I've got a written offer I need to answer by Friday, is a final round possible before then?" B collapsed two rounds into three days. Worst case they say no and you've lost nothing you had.
- 0
AnonymousAnon Be a bit careful with exploding deadlines that come from a recruiter specifically — sometimes it's their internal target rather than the company's. I once asked whether the date was actual policy or their own timeline and it moved by a week. And get any extension in writing over email; the verbal ones have a habit of evaporating.
- 0
AnonymousAnon Ask both, genuinely. To A: "I'm really keen on this, I'm just closing out one other process — could I come back to you Wednesday?" A few days gets granted far more often than people expect, and an offer that truly can't move is itself information about how they treat people. To B: tell them you have an offer in hand with a date on it. That's the one thing that reliably makes a company hurry.