Juggling an offer and an interview you haven’t heard back from

What should you do if you get a job offer but still haven’t heard back from your first choice after interview? And you can’t get in contact with the first choice. They always let you know even if you’re unsuccessful so unless you get a rejection email, you can’t second guess what their decision is.

Would it also be reasonable to ask to meet with your potential new boss just to have a chat and make sure it’s the right job?

Whichever option you feel best handling and they'll let you do eg

Ask to defer the decision for some reason - away for a few days, anything that means you are 100% engaged in something else.

Tell them the truth and see what they say

Accept and the renege if you get the second offer.


There's absolutely nothing unusual about this situation, job hunters always apply for jobs in parallel and not sequentially. Thus the options and the risks all round are nothing unusual for the employer or the candidate.

Is the third option acceptable? Could it get you blacklisted?

No you can't get 'blacklisted' - you won't be applying for another job for at least 2 years, by which time everyone will have moved on - and that's only if you apply to exactly the same team as before. Organisations don't keep job application data forever.

Can you still withdraw after signing a contract? Obviously you can try delaying signing the contract but you can only do that for so long.

What should you do if you get a job offer but still haven’t heard back from your first choice after interview? And you can’t get in contact with the first choice. They always let you know even if you’re unsuccessful so unless you get a rejection email, you can’t second guess what their decision is.

Would it also be reasonable to ask to meet with your potential new boss just to have a chat and make sure it’s the right job?

How long has it been? Usually they'll let you have time to think about the offer and it typically doesn't take long to pick the best candidate so you should only need a day or two to hear back from your first choice unless they offered it to someone else and are waiting for them to accept/reject..

Ask for some time to decide on the offer, and see what they say? You could even explain the full situation to them if you think they'll be understanding; I know of someone who did this and was able to keep the job offer in waiting for a while as a result, though naturally that won't work in every case.

How long has it been since your first choice interview? And when did you get the offer from the second role?

It’s been 3 weeks since first choice interview. HR, who I spoke to on the phone, said it’s the hiring managers responsibility to update my application status and that currently it’s still showing as under consideration. I emailed the hiring manager but had no response. The second role has given me 14 days from yesterday.

14 days is a good amount of time for the first role to get back to you in - I'd personally say make sure you're considering whether you'd be happy in the second role in this time too, however.

Did the first choice one give any indication about the time frame for a response, in your initial interview?

All they said is that I’d hear after the last interview which was 2 Fridays ago I think.

It’s been 3 weeks since first choice interview. HR, who I spoke to on the phone, said it’s the hiring managers responsibility to update my application status and that currently it’s still showing as under consideration. I emailed the hiring manager but had no response. The second role has given me 14 days from yesterday.

3 weeks is a very long time. I would be very surprised if you were successful. Even if you were, personally I would question any company that left me waiting for 3+ weeks

I wouldn’t question it because this company has very slow HR processes. It took around a month for me to get invited to interview after I submitted my application.

That's normal though. Companies will often have a period of collecting applications before they make a shortlist for interviews. If the interview is the final stage then you shouldn't be waiting over a month to hear back.

3 weeks is a very long time. I would be very surprised if you were successful. Even if you were, personally I would question any company that left me waiting for 3+ weeks

I'd add a counter to this that it took me 3 weeks to hear back for my current role, and I've had a very good experience with the company so far, so I wouldn't dismiss a job outright on this basis, personally!

Interesting. Thanks for the insight. Is it a large company? Long waiting times seems to be common in large companies.