The market is tightening further, and this means dealing with counteroffers and multiple offers.
Business has been good - but there have been quite a few drop-offs this quarter, so I thought I'd repost a summary of what to do and not to do when resigning.
This is a decent link - and I've pointed to others at Ask The Headhunter before. I even had a post on Recruiting.com about it.
The answer is simple. Don't take an offer you don't plan on keeping for at least a year. Don't interview for a job you have no serious thought of taking, and please, please don't assume that interviewing at a company for one position will magically get you another, higher paying position at that company.
The market is tightening, but candidate behavior is at its worst in years. The retaliation of candidates against bad hiring practices is a no-win battle - ulimately because treating one company badly to pay back another company's behavior is like cheating on a spouse because a girlfriend cheated on you ten years earlier. You're hurting yourself and an innocent party, not the person who treated you wrong in the first place.
Yet the justification for poor behavior continues (There is no such thing as an innocent party, ed).
Look, I'm just a lonely recruiter out here in the world, but your reputation, your personal brand is important. Every recruiter has what is known as a "LBF" (LB standing for Lying B***ard File), and we share that information freely, even when we smile and nod if you decide to quit your job two days after starting or accept another offer while waiting.
It's an adult world, not a child's playground, and we all should get used to disappointment. Me personally? I'm happy when someone gets a better offer or a better opportunity. My job is to put people in positions where they will succeed - and I truly rejoice at that.
At the same time - based on hundreds of hires over my career - I know the difference between a better opportunity and a candidate who was playing both sides of the fence. Some people never learn, but when someone gets caught with their fingers in the cookie jar - Ihave no sympathy.
A story here. From Nick Corcodilos
The Extortionist
"Ramesh was an engineer who had no intention of resigning his job and who, it turned out, didn't need to bother.When I first recruited him, this engineer was gushing with motivation. "I need more challenge!" he said. My client made him a very good offer. Ramesh wanted two weeks to think about it. After killing time by repeatedly asking for "more information" from my client, on the fourteenth day Ramesh called me.
"I wouldn't be able to start for four weeks, but I'm not accepting the offer just yet. I'll call you back."
At that point, I wrote Ramesh off — he was playing games. My guess turned out to be right. He was getting up the courage to go dangle the job offer in front of his current boss. However, I hadn't guessed the outcome. When he called again all I could do was smile."
