Approach to 'stalling' on a job offer?

[HangTime]

Hypothetical scenario, if you are made an offer for job A but are still going through the process for job B, and you feel like job B might ultimately be your preferred option pending the conclusion of discussions, how do you go about delaying a decision on job A until the position with job B is clear? From where I'm sat there are a few options, but not clear on best route:

1) Be transparent with company A and state that in order to make the right decision for your career you want all the facts about both opportunities before making a final decision, to avoid potentially messing them around. There is of course a risk that this undermines their view of your suitability for their company, are they just your 'backup option' and not really a long-term prospect.
2) Just accept job A and then if a suitable offer for job B comes along, renege on your agreement to join company A. I don't like this approach and it would certainly mark one's card for potential future opportunities.
3) Just slow down communication, negotiate hard on all elements of the package, come up with additional questions you didn't get a chance to ask at interview, say you need to discuss more with your partner, just generally stall for time. Presumably this can only go on for so long however

More generally what do you think is a reasonable timeframe to sit on a job offer? As a hiring manager, I'd be concerned if I didn't have a signed contract returned in a couple of days.

 

[HangTime]

Thanks for the measured views everyone.

The bit I struggle with a bit is putting myself in their shoes, if they've got a candidate who seems keen, they've been made an offer at an acceptable level and they are saying "oh I want to see out these other interview processes" it just feels like it undermines one's commitment a bit. You sound a bit false telling them you think they have a great opportunity yet you are expecting them to wait around while you see if something else comes to fruition. It feels a bit like if you asked someone to marry you and they said, "I'm not sure yet I might get a better offer, but I don't want to break up with you just yet". If you don't get job B and end up taking job A, they might think that you ould jump ship as soon as an opportunity like B comes up again, do they really want to invest in you for that to happen? I mean the fact you won't just accept their offer means that you must not be 100% sold on joining that company, otherwise you would just exit all other processes as I've done in the past.

Arguably if you haven't been doing this already then you've already perhaps left money on the table in past salary negotiations (could even pretend as an excuse for asking for a bit more if you're feeling bold).

It's also a good way to hurry firm B along in terms of getting an offer or getting your final interview sorted ASAP and is evidence that you're a desirable candidate and for firm A it is a reason to ask for them to make you a better offer (you should just do this regardless, ask them for more as the first offer can usually be improved upon - the majority of hiring managers have more budget available to deal with counter offers etc.. not asking for this is leaving money on the table in most cases).

I've had multiple applications on the go in the past but typically the job I want the most / been most impressed by during the hiring process has been the first to reach offer stage. I've not really had a situation where I've received an offer yet still been confident of an application for a 'potentially better' job reaching a positive conclusion.

I've used it as a reason to speed up the process for B.

As for leveraging the offer from A I guess the starts to bleed into #3 territory, I mean if it reaches a point where they meet my demands there's nothing more to do in that negotiation beyond signing the contract. I already know that B will pay significantly less than A but they don't know that, so I guess I can say I want to compare offers should B make one.

It also depends on the job and availability of other candidates. In the sort of work that we do it often takes 3-9 months before we can find the right person, we're not gonna be annoyed if they stall for a week or two. Chances are their notice period is several months anyway and maybe that can be bought or negotiated down. I assume if there were 10 other qualified candidates who could start immediately, you can't stall for long

I'm fairly confident they don't have a big queue of candidates, they are growing rapidly and it is apparently they have a lot of demand for people with my skills and experience. The general job market in this area is pretty active with a fairly high jobs:candidates ratio and they proactively approached me to see if I was interested. If another suitable candidate comes along, I think they would hire both of us. I think this puts me in a better position in terms of stalling for time (I also have a very short notice period so can probably join quicker than most even if I faff about for a week or two).

In conclusion, I think if this hypothetical scenario were to materialise that I will go with option 1. If they come in with an offer below my expectations, in some ways that will make things easier because I can just say on that basis I want to see B through to a conclusion before taking any decision.

 

[HangTime]

I've never accepted the first offer from any new employer I've joined except for my first ever company but I get that if I had a queue of prospective employers all with good offers forthcoming I could have eeked out more. Like I said though, it's never really played out that way, rightly or wrongly I've rarely had a synchronised set of interview processes where I've been a) successful enough to get to a late stage, b) confident about them as a prospective employer and c) known the unfinished processes were likely to be competitive on remuneration with where I've gone. Theoretically there will always be a better paying job out there and you could keep interviewing at different places indefinitely.
As for B being a waste of time, it's something I believe I'd find more interesting/enjoyable. I would accept an offer from B if it was good enough albeit less than A. The point of this thread was on how to stall A to get time find out if I'm offered B at an acceptable level - if B was a waste of time, this thread wouldn't exist because I would have no reason to stall if there was no chance of me accepting a role there.
A peer company of A wouldn't hold any particular interest to me beyond A, I've been approached about that already, I know people that work at peers of A. Maybe I could play off A1 and A2 against each other and get marginally more money but my preference as it stands pending completion of the process would be to work at B.

 

[HangTime]

It was a hypothetical situation that became reality but has not played out fully yet. I went with option 1 which A seemed understanding of to but understandably want to impose a deadline. The issue is the 4th stage interview isn't yet scheduled with B so I may be faced with having to just make a decision on A before fully completing the process with B. Although when pushed as to whether the offer would be rescinded if not accepted by the deadline they backed away slightly saying it was more to do with internal processes.

Following the latest panel interview with B I'm a bit less sure about it, it transpires the role would be working with more regions in more timezones than I was originally told (PST in addition to GMT and CET) which means probably some long days during key periods, and I was not convinced by one of the panellists who seemed a bit out of their depth, but to be fair judging someone on an hour's video call is perhaps unfair. Culturally I might be slightly more aligned with the people I met at company A. The fact scheduling these interviews takes so long also suggests to me the panellists at B have very full diaries (been there, done that as a hiring manager) which may not bode well. One of the issues is the pace they are working at, my first interview was four weeks ago although I appreciate Christmas is always going to slow things down.

 

[HangTime]

I used to work for a Director who did that (interview all hires in his department) but thankfully he is a smart guy and realised that we'd grown to a size where that just wasn't feasible anymore.

 

[HangTime]

Given Em3bbs wanted an update, the conclusion is I've decided to take an improved offer negotiated with A and withdraw from B. B are just too slow, it's 5 weeks now since my first interview with them, they still haven't come back with feedback from an interview two days ago, and seem to want to add a 5th interview into the process. Dragging on and no guarantee I even get an offer from it, which would be lower than A anyway. Caught good vibes from the directors at A, they seem to want me and despite the appeal of company B the latter seems less well organised & the role is slightly more junior.

I don't have a problem with multi-stage processes but where used they really need to be streamlined a bit in terms of not leaving big gaps between interviews, especially for roles that aren't that senior.