John: Hey, this is John Sonmez from simpleprogrammer.com.
I’ve got a question here that is fairly anonymous so I'm not even going to say a first
name here just to be on the safe side, but this is a really good question so hopefully
I can give you a good answer here Mr.—we’ll call you Mr. Joe.
Mr. Joe says, “Hi John” by the way if you’re anonymous you suddenly get a “Mr.”
title in front of your name.
Mr. Joe says, “Hi John, if you decide to share this question I’d like to remain anonymous.”
Check.
“I’m currently searching for new career opportunities and recently had a phone interview
for a position that sounds great as far as what the work would be (the technical aspects).
“The interview was conducted by the technical lead of the team.
Near the end of the interview I asked several questions including what is your favorite
part of working here.
Is this a new position or if I’m replacing someone that happened—and what happened
to them.”
as he said.
“How long have most of the team members been with the company?
“After the interview I sent a polite email to the interviewer thanking him for his time
reiterating how my skills line up with the needs of the team and expressing that if he
sees me as a good candidate for the position I would be happy to have a follow up conversation.
However, as the day progressed and I reflected on the conversation I realized that the interviewer’s
answers to my questions had set off a few red flags that I didn’t recognize right
away.
I started to realize that the company might not be a good fit for me or to paraphrase
Scott Hanselman, I probably wouldn’t hire them to be my boss.
“My question for you is if they follow up and want an additional interview or want to
make an offer what is the polite and professional way to say thanks, but not thanks in this
type of situation?
Should I go through the motions and hope to be pleasantly surprised or should I just rip
off the band-aid quick and clean?
I don’t want to come across as trying to negotiate a better offer.
I’m just skeptical that it’s the right place for me.
One note that might make my situation different than other readers is that I’m currently
employed and have a stable career which makes walking away from some opportunities much
easier.”
So Mr. Joe, I almost slipped your real name there.
Then we’d have to edit that out.
This is a situation that—I think I’ve got a fairly easy answer for you here.
You don’t want to burn bridges but you can really get out of this situation easily without
burning bridges.
I mean the only way you’re really going to burn a bridge here is if you tell them
to F off and if you bring up anything about the reasons why that you don’t want this
job.
I mean there’s a million reasons you can come up with as to why you will decline your
offer which I would highly recommend that you decline this offer if you’re already
getting these bad signals.
Don’t worry about it.
The thing is though—I’ll give you some advice on what not to do because that’s
easier.
There’s actually a smaller amount of what not to do.
Do not address anything about those questions that you asked at the end of the interview
and why that made you feel like this might not be the place for you.
Do not say anything about you not feeling like this might not be the place for you.
First of all that’s none of their business and second of all that is the only thing that
you could do in this situation that could hurt you because that could burn a bridge,
that could have someone talking to someone else and then you get blackballed or something
bad happening to you.
That’s the only thing that you could really screw up in this situation.
What I would say here is just politely decline.
Just say—if they send you an offer and they say, “Hey, we want to offer you this position.”
Just say, “Thanks for your offer.
It’s a very generous offer.
It seems like you have a great company and great team there but I have to decline.”
That’s all you have to say.
That’s the beauty of this, right?
You don’t owe them anything.
You don’t owe them any other explanation.
In fact, if you applied for a company and they wanted to reject you they wouldn’t
say, “Oh, you did such a good job on the interview but there was this one little question
that we didn’t feel like you were quite right.”
They wouldn’t try to explain themselves.
They would just say, “We have decided to go with another candidate.”
You could either say, “I decided to go with another opportunity.”
That’s a fine answer.
You don’t owe them any explanation.
If they come back and they say, “Well, why?
What can we do?
If we offered you more money?”
Just again politely just say, “No thanks.
I’ve decided to go with another opportunity” or “No, thanks.
There’s not any real issue as to why.
I just decided that this is a better path for me” or whatever it is.
Just politely decline and do not give them details.
If you give them details that’s the only time that you’re going to be in trouble
in this situation and even then I mean the chances of it hurting you later is very small.
Here’s the thing, this is where you’re at right now I would assume is that you’re
afraid of letting them down, of being a jerk or whatever it is.
This is business.
I’ve had to fire people before.
If you’re running a business you wouldn’t keep someone on because you feel bad letting
them go because you’re afraid that they’re not going to like you or that you’re going
to hurt their feelings, right?
Same thing here is don’t let those emotions that you might be feeling about this job or
letting them down or their environment, don’t let that affect you and cloud your judgment.
You’ve just got to be business with them and keep it business.
Don’t explain yourself.
Just say no, that’s it and look for a better opportunity.
Hopefully this helps you.
Let me know how it works out.
Send me an email to follow up.
I’m curious to see what happened.
I’m guessing by the time that you’ve—that I’ve gotten around to answering your email
by a video that you’ve already figured this out.
I sent you a short answer hopefully.
Let me know how it works out and if you’ve got some other advice, leave a comment below.
I’d be curious to hear what anyone else out there thinks about this situation or if
you’ve in been in a similar situation and what you did and what the result was.
Anyway, that’s it for this video.
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