To ask for a job offer to be on hold for 2 weeks?

[Terribleluck]

If anybody has been following my posts, after being made redundant I've now had a couple of strong interviews and two coming up. Timing isn't ideal and they're all running their own recruitment schedule. The latest booked interview is for late next week. I applied as a wild card, but got the interview I've applied at this company at least twice before and never got this far. All jobs have their pros and cons, and I do have a preference, however in order to secure a job, I'd have to accept the first offer and just patiently wait for the other processes to complete. Would that be so terrible? Is signing a contract legally binding?

I've asked for a job offer to be put on hold for a week or two before and had no problem, they were happy to do it.
I did feel bad when I spoke to them to refuse the job though as I was offered the job I wanted more...

Also, I think if you do verbally accept the job, you can back out before contracts are signed and you've officially started but I think honesty would be the best policy and therefore better to ask them to wait for your decision.

Best of luck!

To be honest, whilst it is not morally OK, backing out even after you have signed a contract is generally ok.

The worst they can do is make you work the notice period, but most companies wouldn't go through that bother and whilst they would be annoyed with you, probably wouldn't follow it up in any way.

It might be a bit annoying for the company but honestly, would most businesses think twice about making people redundant if they had to?
Look after yourself is my advice.

You may be ok - hr may take time to send contract, get references etc. So verbally accept and then hope process takes a bit of time.
You could ask interview if they can see you sooner - you’ve had a job offer but would like to work for them in preference I can’t see that being viewed negatively shows you are a strong candidate.

I had accepted and signed a contract for a new job - then 2 days later had to call and say I had received a job offer for something I felt suited me better. The first job weren't happy about it, and I felt awful but I had to do what felt right. I also asked the 2nd job to hold off for a few weeks as I had annual leave / notice period to use in my original job

Could you be away on holiday for half term so not available to deal with paperwork until after other interview. It might just give you breathing space you need.

Two answers really if you asked for job offer to be held while you waited on better offer I would just withdraw my offer thinking you a cheeky sod ..but legally nothing can be done if you sign contract then immediately resign

Nothing wrong with asking, they can say no if it won't work for them.

I'd definitely accept the first offer, they might take a while to send contract. You could also reasonably take a week to return it

Do what you have to do. Some companies are fine with it, some aren't.
I'd probably verbally accept offer 1 and tell the others to get a wriggle on!

Some very good suggestions here! Interview next week, they haven't even closed the vacancy, so giving me an interview so early in the process is really good IMO. There's other couple of jobs that I'm really interested in, but haven't heard anything and they're at application stage ATM. They did say they would take a while because a human rather than a machine looks at every application. The job next week is such a wild card of sorts, but I think it sits second in my priority list. I'm now sure I'm a strong candidate regardless of the job and that's a massive confidence boost.

Don't put a job on hold for another that you haven't had an interview for yet. Is the main point! Accept it. Start it if you have no other choice!

So you haven’t even had an offer yet?

I wouldn’t spend much time worrying about something that may not happen!

I guess it depends on the nature of the role. How competitive it is.

I’m familiar with academic recruitment. We’d wait because it’s hard to get someone good. They’ll usually tell us who we’re competing with so often it comes down to other factors (like where they’d prefer to live) so we don’t take it personally.

An admin assistant role - we’d probably give you a day but we’d really just want to move on and fill the role.

@flowery I have a very good interview to offer ratio. I can only remember five jobs I didn't get beyond the interview stage, but three I had zero experience (one was a council job and I'm sure I was the token), one I cried because I was so nervous and the other one, I was a wild card and didn't necessarily have all of the experience. These jobs I can all do with no issue and they're fairly specialised.

I’d rather wait, than be told you’re accepting the job when you are still looking elsewhere. At least then I can let other candidates know that we may contact them again. And you’re giving them the choice, if they don’t want to wait they can make an offer to someone else, and there’ll be no bad feeling - they can come back to you if that person rejects the offer.

I might have to cancel one of the interviews anyway, of for just one interview is proving almost impossible to make it work, I can't see how it could work mon-fri