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I was called by my future supervisor yesterday morning telling me that they are going to be making an offer. But it's a large corporation and the HR dept has to call and give me the official offer.

HR called an hour later and made the offer. Approx $15k more than what I originally asked for. She said it's based on number of years of service and the person hiring me put 14 years - which is correct. She said she'd email a link to the offer and I needed to respond by the end of the day. When I got the email about 10 minutes later, the link wouldn't work. It said the offer had been rescinded.

I immediately emailed HR and got no response. A few hours later I called HR. She gave me a vague answer that my years of experience need to be adjusted and that she was alerted by the person who hired me to rescind it until they could clairfy. She kept insisting that it wouldn't be a huge reduction but that it wouldn't be what she just quoted me. She never called back yesterday.

I'm wondering how to respond today if they call and say they are reducing. I know they will say that it's still within my desired range but I'm a little miffed that no one even bothered to call me and say the offer was being rescinded. I'll also be a little miffed if they say they aren't giving me full credit for all years -they are all relevant to the job.

What would you do? Go along with it because it's still in my desired range or tell them that I'm not taking it because if this is their practices for just giving an offer, what happens when there are other issues down the line? Thoughts?

Thalantas
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Caroline
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  • Possible duplicate of How do I properly follow-up with a hiring manager, to check on the status of a position? – gnat Nov 22 '16 at 11:17
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    "What would you do" is rarely a good question for this site. I personally would go drink a nice coffee and play some loud metal music. But that information does not help you one bit. You will need to decide how you want to react. We cannot help you with that. – nvoigt Nov 22 '16 at 11:20
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    I've answered the "what would you do" part, but you probably want to adjust the question to make it more precise. Formating could also be clearer. – Thalantas Nov 22 '16 at 11:26
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    Wait until you hear the real offer, then decide how to respond. – WorkerDrone Nov 22 '16 at 12:27
  • No answerable question here, as nvoigt explained. "Is this professional?" would also have limited use as a question since there can't really be any doubt that not acknowledging this problem is a huge red flag. Ultimately each person will look at this differently and a lot depends on whether the offer would still be acceptable and whether you feel like this is just an administrative screw-up or a sign of much deeper issues with management or HR. – Lilienthal Nov 22 '16 at 12:40
  • If you already feel bad towards the company (and I would, in your shoes), then that is unlikely to improve. Do you want to work for a company that you have good reason to believe will continue to jerk you about in future? Do you have any alternatives? – Mawg says reinstate Monica Nov 22 '16 at 15:26

2 Answers2

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Wait for the offer.

You are speculating at the moment. If you are interested in working in the company and are willing to accept any salary above X, whatever else they said is not important. You might have encountered a new hire/intern in HR who is not familiar with her process yet.

However, one part in your problem is a serious concern. She gave me a vague answer that my years of experience need to be adjusted and that she was alerted by the person who hired me to rescind it until they could clairfy. When the offer arrives, ask them for the calculation and ensure that the offer is in line with your actual skills. If they seem to not value an important part of your career, you should talk it through with them to come to an agreement.

You can also ask them for a confirmation email the next time they make an offer.

Thalantas
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I would think hard about the nature of how this has been handled. It is sure that mistakes can be made within the HR department but also seems that there was poor internal communication between the hiring manager and the HR person. This could be indicative of a pattern within this company that you may want to be concerned about.

My suggestion is that you do not stop looking for other opportunities so that you have some basis for comparison when and if the current offer does materialize for real. That basis for comparison will allow you to:

  1. See what your potential salary could be from more than one source.
  2. Get an insight what the working conditions and management personalities are like.
  3. Understand what the potential work tasks would be at the various positions.

In the end this current fiasco could end up being your dream job but then again it may not, especially of the situation leaves you feeling any level of mistrust in the company.

Michael Karas
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