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So I got my first offer recently (from mass mailing and contacts! keep hope alive, everyone) after almost striking out at OCI. I am still waiting to hear back from two firms post-CB. My interviews were over two weeks ago at both firms. I know a one-day-old offer is hardly an "expiring" offer, but at what point can I reach out to those two firms and say "hey, i've got an expiring offer, what's the deal?" My gut says Monday of the week the offer will expire. Thoughts?

you can reach out to them now to tell them about your offer and reiterate your interest.

Assuming it's a NALP firm, NALP has set guidelines in regards to offer expiration. The firm must give you 28 days.

http://www.nalp.org/fulltextofnalpprinc ... 20Decision

And yea, you don't have to tell the other firm exactly when it will expire. Just tell them you are interested but do have another offer that will expire soon.

Generally, if you tell a firm about a competing offer, the next question out of their mouth is "how fast do we need to get back to you?" If you have 28 days to respond to the competing offer, tell them 3 weeks. If you have 10 days, tell them you need to hear back in 5. That's how I do it.

totesTheGoat wrote:Generally, if you tell a firm about a competing offer, the next question out of their mouth is "how fast do we need to get back to you?" If you have 28 days to respond to the competing offer, tell them 3 weeks. If you have 10 days, tell them you need to hear back in 5. That's how I do it.

Thanks! Is this an email thing, or more of a phone thing?

Email.

I generally waited until 1 week before the offer expires to tell the firms that I have 1 week left to decide.

Generally, I just told firms the exact date of my earliest offer expiration (about 2.5 weeks out from my next offer). None of the others tried to play a game where they waited until the expiration date was almost there, they just gave me fast answers.

You can use a strategy above and I don't think you'll go wrong, but I don't really see the harm in just telling the firm your exact expiration date.

I made sure to tell them as early as possible in the hopes of getting some time to make a decision between the firms. May not be necessary if the firms you're waiting on are clear top choices, but if you had to make a choice you are going to want at least a few days to really think things over.

would never do this b/c of risk of ruining a potential offer and I am sure it is strictly prohibited by NALP but I am curious…has anyone ever heard of people lying about having an expiring offer in an attempt to get an offer from a firm?

Anonymous User wrote:would never do this b/c of risk of ruining a potential offer and I am sure it is strictly prohibited by NALP but I am curious…has anyone ever heard of people lying about having an expiring offer in an attempt to get an offer from a firm?

I'm not sure how that would make a positive difference.

Anonymous User wrote:would never do this b/c of risk of ruining a potential offer and I am sure it is strictly prohibited by NALP but I am curious…has anyone ever heard of people lying about having an expiring offer in an attempt to get an offer from a firm?

anecdotally, I heard of someone doing this to a firm (from the interviewer at that firm) and then the guy called back a day after his ding to say the other offer had "fallen through" and he still hopes to be considered....

Anonymous User wrote:I made sure to tell them as early as possible in the hopes of getting some time to make a decision between the firms. May not be necessary if the firms you're waiting on are clear top choices, but if you had to make a choice you are going to want at least a few days to really think things over.

This is why I don't give them the exact expiration date. Even if you're waiting on the top choices, it is less stressful when you have 5-10 days to make sure you're making the right decision. You never know when some question may come up that you need an answer to.

Anonymous User wrote:would never do this b/c of risk of ruining a potential offer and I am sure it is strictly prohibited by NALP but I am curious…has anyone ever heard of people lying about having an expiring offer in an attempt to get an offer from a firm?

I think it would be better in that situation to just avoid lying and say "I need to make a decision in the next 2 weeks" without mentioning another offer.