Is it wrong to accept a job knowing it's your fall back plan and you're waiting on better offers that you'll accept if they came through?
I accepted a new contract role yesterday, a lot more money but it's in a fair distance away which means staying over a few days during the week. Alternatively, there's hopefully an offer from another contract role which is basically next door to where I am now which is the one I will go for.
Is that wrong? I just worry that if you say "sorry I'm waiting on other offers" they'll change their mind or hold it against you, but on the flip side, I'm basically going to burn a bridge with the recruiter who got me the far away job when I turn round and tell him actually I won't be working their as I've accepted a better offer
Well yeah of course it is wrong - is it a big industry though? How likely are you going to be burned by it?
I mean if perm then it would be ridiculous for them to expect you to give an answer within 24 hours of making you an offer if you're waiting on another offer, I guess maybe contracting is slightly different but then again how soon do they expect you to start? What do you mean by "hold it against you" they know that people interview at multiple places at once, that shouldn't be a big deal.
I'd certainly use it to get the other place to get a move on with their offer.
Right folks, I've signed the contract and agreed a start date but nowhere in the process was I ever asked about planned holidays. What's the best way to bring this up as we have a trip planned from 19th Dec to 3rd January? My pro-rata annual leave just about covers this length.
@Maccy the initial process was through a recruiter up until the verbal acceptance of the offer. After that they just went off and the rest of the process was directly through the company's HR/Recruitment.
We're looking to get everything booked next week and thought it'd be a good idea to give them a heads up.
Just tell them, perhaps better in an e-mail than phone call as you have some record of it if HR saying "oh that's fine, don't worry about it" in case your actual manager later says "oh no, that's no good".
At the moment you don't really have anything booked - you'd just like time off to go away at Christmas - so do most of your colleagues I'd assume. In most workplaces this is fine and pretty much encouraged as it is useful to have most people away at the same time, in other jobs where you have to provide some level of coverage it isn't ideal... so it kind of depends on the role.
If you're in a team where it is important and some people have to cover Christmas then you might be expected to provide some coverage, it could be quite bad/cause resentment as the new guy to just come in and want a big block of time off over some period where everyone would too.
In the case where it might be important don't lie about this stuff as there is the possibility that they ask you to cancel the trip in which case you'll probably be asked to submit your hotel reservations, flights etc.. so they can reimburse you so don't claim to have booked something if you actually haven't yet or indeed if you're asking them now then just booking anyway before you get a response wouldn't look good.
