I have a friend who found himself in a
bidding war. Two companies claimed to want him. He wanted one
company. He wanted to be the Division Manager for Operations at a
food giant. One company had him on their private plane visiting
midwest locations while the other drove him around in a town car and
placed him in a corporate apartment they have overlooking Lake
Michigan and Lake Shore Drive. I wanted him to take the corporate
apartment – it was so gorgeous, I wanted to move into it myself. It
was 4,000 square feet with an uninterrupted view from the Bahai
Temple to the Gary Steelmills. He even had a private elevator. He
wanted the private jet so he was pulling the other way – until one
of the managers told a very off color joke that made my friend very
uncomfortable. He was worried about working there after that. He
didn't want to be affiliated with something that he knew might limit
his growth at that point.
My friend decided to take himself out
of the running by sending a letter to the recruiting manager
indicating that he didn't think he was the right fit for the company.
He hadn't gotten the offer from the company I liked, but he said he
was sure that he wouldn't like spending all day with that guy at the
first company, private jets or not.
I mentioned this to my manager at the
time, and she couldn't believe what he had done. She explained that
a move like that is not the move of a professional at that level.
She said he should have kept his options open, gotten the offer from
both companies and expressed regret but taken the offer from the
company he wanted, after an offer was provided. I had been proud of
him for standing his ground. Now I was afraid he would never get an
offer that he could accept.
Eventually, he does get the offer from
company B along with the apartment, the town car and the driver.
Things go very well there and he moves up the ladder to head
Operations. At that point the President of company B spends some
time with him and explains that they had been hesitant to hire him
after the way he blew off company A. This was very surprising to my
friend because he had certainly never mentioned that the other
company was interviewing him for fear that they would lose interest.
The President explained that the interest from the other company was
exactly the reason they liked him so much. The two companies were
rivals, they traded employees back and forth all the time. My friend
explained how he became disenchanted with company A.
The President of company B explained
that he was aware of the ploy. It was apparently done at several
companies with facilites in areas of the midwest that are not as
liberal, or as prepared to see diversity at the senior management
level. My friend was a little floored to think that people are still
being tested in this day and age, but there it is. The President was
a little more gentle than my manager was, but he explained it this
way.
It's naïve to think that senior
managers in the same industry aren't friends. They went to school
together, traded info, hook-ups, discussed philsophies, and
definitely trade stories on employment candidates. Since you never
know who knows who, it's best to assume that everyone knows everyone
and treat everyone with the care you would a close relative. The
interview you blow today may lead to problems down the road from
companies that you don't even have on your horizon right now. Take a
longer view of your career, you'll be stuck with it for decades.
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