How late can you decline an internal job offer

Question

I am working in finance / insurance in a rather large company and joined about 2 years ago. I have been quite unsatisfied with my current position for a number of reasons but I think the company itself is a good place to work.

Because of that, I applied for two internal positions, let's call them job A and job B. Both of them are really interesting opportunities and I would massively prefer any of them over my current job. Comparing A and B however, I feel I have a slight to medium preference for job A.

Now the problem is that I got an offer for job B and was asked if I wwant to take it. Knowing that it would be at least 2 weeks before I get feedback for job A (I have not even done the final round of interviews for A) and that both positions have a high number of applicants, I felt like anything but answering "Yes, sure I want it!" would have meant, they give the job to someone else and I am left with the vague chance of getting the offer from A, so I told B I would accept the job.

So this is the situation right now. I have not signed anything yet but I am very unsure of how to proceed now. Any tips are appreciated!

(Workplace is Germany)

Answer 1

You have accepted, so it is very hard to backtrack now, and it will lose you goodwill.

My go to response is: I will think about this today and answer you tomorrow. That's a principle of mine (zu Deutsch: Ich schlaf aus Prinzip über solche wichtigen Entscheidungen, ich werde Ihnen morgen meine Antwort mitteilen).

This would have given you some time to communicate with A. Then you can give A the choice to fast track you, or you drop out. Then the ball is in their court to decide. You should then be willing to accept B of course, because if A is inflexible (for whatever reason), you will go to B.

If you want to make it as easy as possible for A, you will decline B. But this will risk you staying in your current position. And losing goodwill on top, especially since you accepted already.

Sometimes we just have to weigh if the chance for something potentially better is worth risking something good. I understand that you want the option risk free, sadly that's not always what we get.

Answer 2

B is asking you for a decision. A hasn't offered you anything yet.

In circumstances like this, delaying B will probably have the effect of negatively impacting their desire to have you. You can't delay to say "I'm considering you're position only if I can't get a better one at A" because it shows lack of desire for the job B.

This means you need to reach out to job A and ask them, "Can you speed up the decision? I have another offer in hand, but I really like this position. I can't delay accepting the offer for long, maybe a day or two."

If you were really their lead choice in A, they'll clear the path for an offer, quickly enough that you can accept position A and deliver the news to B that you've already committed yourself to A.

Odds are that you'll be in position B, so don't mess up the interactions with that group. Attempt to provide as little information to group A that it is B's offer that is solid. You don't want to deal with any A to B communicaitons that would possibly upset your offer at B.

Answer 3

In hindsight, what you should have done is tell B about the existence of A, and tell A that B has offered you a position. It would then be up to A to either accelerate their decision process, or tell you that they can't. They should be able to tell you that immediately.

From then on it's risk management. Maybe B can wait three days, so you tell A you need an answer within three days. Not getting that answer would weigh heavily in favour of B. And if you HAVE an offer from B, and you MAY get a slightly better offer from A, then it's up to you what risk you want to take, and going with B would likely be the better route - if you don't, you may end up with nothing.

Answer 4

In this situation, first come first accept. Because it is in the same company, anything delay or reject finally would highly impact your internal reputation, don't forget two apartments share the same HR team :)

And sure that the less time you response is better. Don't make it more than the same day. Once you accept this position, immediately ask the other department terminate your process. POLITELY, and with your APOLOGISE.