Should you tell a potential employer with an offer that you're interviewing with another company?

Question

After more than a month of waiting, I received an offer from a potential employer last week. However, the day before they contacted me about the offer, another company set me up for an interview. Currently, I'm the process of negotiating the contract with the first company, and I'm not really sure if I should tell them about the the other company (and not really as a form of leverage). I want the entire process to be transparent (as much as possible) for all parties involved but I learned in the past few months that job application is a weird process where telling the truth may get you in trouble.

Would it be weird to tell the employer with an offer to wait while I go through the process with the other company? Should I tell the other company that I already have an offer from the first one? I'm not very far in process with the new company (step 2/4 or 2/5 I think), so I may not even get an offer from them. I'm afraid that if I don't do the right thing now, I might end up with zero offers in the end.

Answer 1

I think is better to rush the second employer to take a decision for you. You can't have the first employer wait 3 months (let's say) for the second one to give you an offer or not!

I think you should highlight that you have an offer from a company and you would like to have an answer as soon as possible, or you could say "Thanks for the interview today, I have some other applications waiting, so I will really appreciate if you can give me a deadline on when you are going to take the final decision, or if there is any further steps in your hiring process?"

Depending on the above answer and how you did it in the interviews you can guess whether the company is going to give you an offer or not.

If you find out that the process is going to delay, then you should show professionalism with the first employer who offer you a job. Is up to you in that case.

Answer 2

Would it be weird to tell the employer with an offer to wait while I go through the process with the other company?

You want to put your negotiations on hold while you interview elsewhere? Yes, that would be weird and would likely mean the first potential employer would move on to their next candidate.

Hiring managers don't want to wait around while candidates play games. They want to fill a position. Since they are negotiating with you, presumably they want you. But they almost certainly have other candidates that would meet their requirements too. They most likely don't want to keep the position empty until you have talked to this other company (and maybe several others that might come along).

Instead, just decide how much you want the job from the first employer. If you want the job, finish your negotiations. Interview elsewhere meanwhile if you like, but be prepared to either accept or reject the negotiated contract, assuming you agree on one.