What to do if a job offer is rescinded, why it happens and how to respond

Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: Hey there. I’m Sarah Doody, host of the Career Strategy Podcast. Many professionals are seeking more impact, flexibility, growth, and let’s face it, getting paid what they’re worth. But how do you unlock this in your career? It starts with strategy. I’m taking you behind the scenes of what’s working for my career coaching clients. You’ll hear strategies and actionable, yet sometimes against the grain, advice for how you can be the CEO of your career and stop in Mondays. Ready to level up your career? Let’s get after it. Hey there.

Sarah Doody [00:00:39]: Welcome back to another episode of the Career Strategy Podcast. And today, we have a topic that isn’t easy to talk about, but it’s important to talk about, and that is what to do in a situation where you receive a job offer and then it’s rescinded or taken back after it’s been offered to you. This clearly is a a frustrating, not great place to be in as a candidate. And if this has happened to you, I am Sorry, and I want you to know that you are not the only person this has happened to. But in the moment, let’s face it, It feels horrible. I want you to be really strategic if that happens to you. So I thought in today’s episode, we could cover some really common questions about what to do if your job offer is rescinded. So the first topic I wanna cover is what should you do If you already gave your current employer notice and now you’re stuck in a situation of You really truly don’t have a job now because you already quit your other job.

Sarah Doody [00:01:49]: Right? So one of the things that you could do is ask someone at the company that rescinded the job offer if they have any other positions that might Be a fit. It can’t hurt to ask. As a candidate, you have to advocate for yourself, and this is one of the ways you could do that. So the recruiter, the hiring manager, whomever you have been in contact with along this journey of getting to this point where they gave you an offer. It can’t hurt to say to them, look. I understand this offer has been rescinded. I’m curious. Based on what you know about me and my skills and experience, etcetera, is there anyone else in the company that you think could benefit from my skill set? Are any other departments hiring, etcetera? And depending on the size of the company, they may not know that answer, but They may be able to point you in the right direction, send you to a different recruiter, a different hiring manager, a different department.

Sarah Doody [00:02:53]: The other thing I want you to remember, and it’s easier said than done, is to not panic. I know it feels devastating, but I want you to have the confidence that you made it this far and that you received an offer that hundreds potentially of other candidates did not receive the offer. So a rescinded job offer is not a reflection of you as a candidate, of your skills, experience, self worth, etcetera. There are so many reasons job offers get rescinded, and, unfortunately, Those are out of your control, and sometimes you may not even know the reason. But don’t let this derail you because You made it this far, so you are an awesome candidate. It’s just that something unexpected has happened, which caused that company to have to take back that job offer. Maybe it was budgets. Maybe it was priorities.

Sarah Doody [00:03:49]: Who knows? Don’t take it personally. Try not to get stuck, and I know easier said than done. Alright. So the second question I wanna think about here is You potentially already quit your previous job, and then you were applying. And then you got the offer, and the offer was rescinded. Should you go back to the company that you just quit your job at? Could you go back to them and be honest with them and see if they’ll have you back? Right? So this is definitely a possibility. If you left on good terms, if you have a good relationship with people at your Company, it cannot hurt to go back to them and be honest, say what’s happened, and try and reengage them. You never know if they’ve had a terrible time trying to fill the position, if they realized in the days or weeks that you’ve been gone just how valuable you were or are, and they may be totally willing to have you back.

Sarah Doody [00:04:54]: So I know it could be awkward, and you might be a little feeling ashamed or weird going back and saying, I have this job offer, and they took it away. But I think It can’t hurt to ask. Right? The worst that they say is no, but it’s quite possible they would say yes, or Maybe they would even hire you as a contractor on kind of a project basis to work on some things that are super urgent to them right now, especially given you just left. Right? If you feel like you burned bridges, though, at your last company and you don’t have great relationships there or respect to go back to your employer, then Consider this a lesson for the future. Right? It’s so cliche, don’t burn bridges, but this is a great example of how not Burning bridges and keeping them intact can be very valuable to you in the future. Alright. The next topic I wanna go over Here is kinda where do you go from here. Right? If you had your job offer rescinded, are you starting all over again, and what does that look like? You can avoid starting your job search from the ground up by having a job search strategy that you are kind of working all the time, not just when you’re looking for a job.

Sarah Doody [00:06:15]: And this is a tip that you can take with you moving forward. So maybe you haven’t been doing this in your career so far, but hopefully after today, you’re gonna realize the benefit of really always being in job search mode. Obviously, sometimes it might be more aggressive and proactive, but you always wanna be looking, have your radar up, and see what might be out there. So What do I mean by this? I mean, there’s 2 really key activities that you could be doing on an ongoing basis. First of all, really be proactively reaching out, applying for jobs, building relationships with people at companies where you want to work. This is so important because so many jobs are found and filled through relationships. Right? You can hear about jobs through relationships. People might post on their LinkedIn or in groups they belong to on LinkedIn or Slack or elsewhere about jobs before they ever hit the job boards.

Sarah Doody [00:07:17]: So if you want to be someone who might hear about jobs before they get out on job boards, for example, there’s a great reason to be building relationships with people. The other thing you wanna do is to really leverage and optimize your LinkedIn profile so that it really becomes a magnet for jobs and opportunities. Right? If you have a very optimized LinkedIn profile, It will attract recruiters and hiring managers. And by attract, I mean, when a recruiter or hiring manager Is typing keywords into LinkedIn Recruiter, the tool, the software that they use to find candidates? If your LinkedIn is optimized, You’re gonna show up in those search results higher than candidates who don’t have an optimized LinkedIn profile, and that’s what I mean by a magnet. So your job search Isn’t just you going out searching for jobs? Your job search is also happening potentially while you’re sleeping because recruiters and Hearing managers are searching for you, and because you did the work to make your LinkedIn profile optimized, you’re showing up. You kind of have to think your LinkedIn profile like a web page that you’re trying to SEO search engine optimize, and make sure that it has the right keywords, phrases, examples, etcetera, that are going to help you bubble up in search results before and higher than other candidates. Alright. So there you have it.

Sarah Doody [00:08:52]: What to do if your Job offer is rescinded. 1st of all, don’t freak out, and remember that you got this far. Someone, multiple people saw the awesome skills and experience that you could bring to their company. And for reasons that were likely out of their control as well, the offer had to be rescinded. It doesn’t mean you’re lacking. It doesn’t mean that you couldn’t get hired at other companies. It just means that it wasn’t right timing for this company. Okay? If this happens, no shame in going back to the company you were previously at, especially if you already quit, and see if there’s opportunities to go back if you want to or maybe get some freelance work.

Sarah Doody [00:09:39]: Right? Totally acceptable. And the other thing to think about is Moving forward in your job search, you wanna be always conducting activities that will result in you not needing to ever start a job search from the ground up, meaning that you have relationships in place that you could immediately reach out to people, posting groups and communities you’re a part of, and try and find opportunities. And Your LinkedIn profile is helping bring you jobs in your sleep because it is optimized for the search engine, which is LinkedIn recruiter, and so when recruiters and hiring managers are searching for candidates like you, you’re going to show up because your profile is optimized just like a well optimized web page shows up in Google’s search results. Alright. I hope this episode was helpful. I hope that if maybe you have friends that maybe have had this happen, you have passed this episode along to them. But At minimum, I really hope you take to heart this tip of not just having your job search be something you do when you are unemployed, but Have your job search be something that’s happening all the time in the background because you’re building and nurturing relationships, and you are always tweaking and updating your LinkedIn profile. So it is definitely increasing the chances It’s gonna show up in those search results in LinkedIn recruiter.

Sarah Doody [00:11:14]: Alright. That’s all I have for you today. I hope this episode though it was helpful, and I will talk to you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to the career strategy podcast. Make sure to follow beef, Sarah Doody, on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. If anything in today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it. Tag me on social media or send me a DM. And lastly, if you found this episode helpful, I’d really appreciate it If you could share it with a friend or give us a quick rating on Spotify or review on Apple Podcasts.