Ask a Career Consultant
Hi there! Every week, the Career Development Team for Researchers at the Office of Career and Professional Development answers an anonymized career development question from the UCSF community. You can also visit the archive of all of our past columns. To submit your own question, email it to [email protected] with the subject line 'ASKOCPD.'
A postdoc asks—
I just did an on-site interview at a university that is not my top choice but it seems like the interview went well, and I’m scheduled for a screening interview at a university I’m much more excited about. I don’t have invitations from other places I’ve applied for so far, so these might be my options. Is there any way I can see how far I get with the place I’m more interested in, while keeping the door open at the first place?
Congratulations on these interviews! I know it would be so nice to have more certainty in this process but truthfully it rarely lines up such that the interview timelines allow for direct comparison of offers. This is a classic situation of making decisions in the face of uncertainty—something you will undoubtedly do more of as you move through your career!
You do have a few things you can try to influence in this process, most of which become available to you once you have an offer in hand. You can ask the first university that has given you an offer for more time before signing, and, once you have interviewed, you can let the second university know that you have an offer and ask about their timeline. This signals to them they are at risk of losing you as a candidate and gives them an opportunity to try harder to get you if they’re interested (for example, by speeding up their interview process), but there’s no guarantee they will be able to do that.
The other thing to consider is the consequence of turning down the more likely offer in order to wait for the offer you would prefer. There is no right or wrong answer here—it comes down to your situation. Would you be able to go on the market again next year? Are you just ready to be done with this process and excited to start a new position, even if it’s not the one you were hoping for? If you take the job, what are your options for moving in a direction you’re more excited about in the near future? Since we can’t predict the future, there isn’t going to be one objectively right answer for your situation, and different people will make different ‘right’ choices based on their own risk-tolerance, but it can be helpful to talk through all the relevant factors with a neutral party to decide what is right for you.
-Ray Care, Program Director, Career Development Team for Researchers