As we all know, the job market at the moment is at a current all time low. It is likely that you will be hopping from interview to interview in a bid to at least secure some form of employment.
When an offer comes through, it is likely that you will be very excited. However, should you accept straight away?
Maybe you should wait a little bit longer. How long is it reasonable to wait? Let’s take a little look!
Firstly, when you are on the job hunt, it is unlikely that you will be tying yourself down to one job. In fact, if you are sensible it is likely that you have multiple positions lined up.
Now, this is obviously going to cause some problems because you may have another job that you are interested in but are still waiting for a decision on.
A common problem that you are going to face is the fact that if you stall too long on making a decision then you will be put out of the minds of the person doing the recruiting, after all, they need to fill the position quite quickly and they don’t want to hang around for somebody who isn’t too interested in the position!
You should never wait more than a week. Always aim to give the person the decision as soon as possible. They will understand that you need to think it over, but they will not understand you delaying it!
In my opinion, you should ask the person on the other end of the line when they need a decision by. Some may wait up to a week, others may only give you a couple of days. Generally speaking, the more “senior” the position, the more chance you have of being able to wait a reasonable amount of time!
So in short, there is no real “appropriate” amount of time to think about a job, well, no standard at least. You should talk to the recruiter and go by what they say.
Remember, don’t put something off too long otherwise you may end up losing out on the chance all together.