A reader writes:
After months of searching, I accepted a contract with a great company. Shortly after accepting, a third-party recruiter reached out about a contract closer to home, with a better salary. I told her I had been hired elsewhere, but she encouraged me to interview regardless. I went through multiple rounds, fell in love with the position (with a major financial institution), and was offered it the day before I was supposed to start job #1.
It was difficult to rescind my acceptance and burn that bridge, but I was confident I was doing the right thing.
The start date was communicated as “ASAP.” I expected to start the following week, but was told I had to wait on the background check. Once that was done, there was another mystery delay. And after that, the recruiter told me the truth: they’re trying to hire multiple people at once, and want everyone to be trained at the same time. This is no cookie-cutter call centre position, by the way; it’s a fairly senior role.
The latest update: one person they wanted just turned it down, so they’re starting over again. This could take months.
I’m getting progressively pissed off each day. I turned down not just a full-time role, but thousands of dollars in freelance work because I was made to believe I needed to be available. The recruiter provides empty apologies and has told me “I think they want you to start next week” three weeks in a row. In the meantime, I’m sitting here with no income.
I’m angry at the company, but I also suspect the recruiter is enabling this idiocy by telling them everything’s fine and that I’m happy to wait.
How do I force her to be honest with her client about how bad this is? Do I lay it on the line and tell her that due to the company’s disinterest in onboarding me, I’ve resumed my job search (which I have)?
I can’t afford to be kept on ice indefinitely. But I also can’t afford to have my only current option rescinded.
Wow, yes, they’ve behaved really badly here — or at least the recruiter has. It’s hard to know what the company knows since, as you note, we don’t know what she’s told them.
I would be very, very direct with the recruiter. Since you want to stay on reasonably good terms, present what you’re feeling as “alarm” rather than anger, even though anger is warranted here. Say something like this: “I’m really alarmed by these delays. I want to lay out where I’m coming from — I turned down an excellent offer with another company to accept this one, and I’ve turned down thousands of dollars in freelance work since I was told I needed to be available immediately. If I’m not going to start right away, I’m going to need to start talking with other employers again. I understand that they want to train everyone at the same time, but I wouldn’t have turned down all that other work if I’d known this would take months. I need to set a start date for very soon — is there a way to make that happen?”
If you get an answer other than a credible-sounding yes, ask her this: “Do they know that I’ve been turning down other work while waiting for them? If not, can you explain that to them — or can I talk with them directly to work this out?”
I know you feel like you can’t afford to have the offer rescinded and you’re probably worried that could happen if you push too hard — but as things stand right now, with no start date and weeks of delays in setting one, this isn’t much of an offer. The longer this goes on, the more tenuous it becomes. So it’s worth having a very direct conversation and explaining what you need.
Meanwhile, keep actively looking because there’s no telling how this will play out or how long it will take.
Read an update to this letter here.