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I have an offer from a rural office near my hometown. I'm not interested in taking it as anything but a last resort. But, I was wondering whether floating that offer to the offices I'm at various stages with to try and get them to speed up the process is a good idea?

Wondering especially for one office where I had my final round and am now waiting on a decision. I think it would show my interest in working there, which I'm worried I didn't sell well enough during my final interview.

And will they ask which office? Because that's a dead giveaway.

*PLEASE DON'T QUOTE*

Aside from any moral judgments I may harbor towards you as a prosecutor, and rest assured I'm harboring quite a few, then it may potentially backfire.

If your desired office is on-the-fence with you, they may not feel the need to pull the trigger so soon, knowing that its still early in the cycle and they can still get someone as qualified as you later on.

You should 100% use it as leverage at the place you really want to be that you’re waiting to hear from the final round. It’s 100% expected normal and everyone does it. It’s a bit weird to use an offer as leverage for an interview though

encore1101 wrote:Aside from any moral judgments I may harbor towards you as a prosecutor, and rest assured I'm harboring quite a few, then it may potentially backfire.

If your desired office is on-the-fence with you, they may not feel the need to pull the trigger so soon, knowing that its still early in the cycle and they can still get someone as qualified as you later on.

I wasn't going to lie. I'd just say something like "I have an offer from another office, and they need to hear back by Y, but I'd prefer to work at Z." All of which is true. Now, am I hoping they assume that office is a strong competitor? Sure, but I don't see a big problem here.

My qualifications on paper are very strong. I think the delay is more due to my failure to sell my interest, and this is really my last chance to show that.

I'd just say something like "I have an offer from another office, and they need to hear back by Y, but I'd prefer to work at Z."

This is pretty common practice. There is the possible downside if they're on the fence. Just depends if you're willing to take that risk. For most people in this situation, they'd take the offer they got but would just prefer to work at Z instead, so if they got rejected from Z they're still fine.

Anonymous User wrote:

encore1101 wrote:Aside from any moral judgments I may harbor towards you as a prosecutor, and rest assured I'm harboring quite a few, then it may potentially backfire.

If your desired office is on-the-fence with you, they may not feel the need to pull the trigger so soon, knowing that its still early in the cycle and they can still get someone as qualified as you later on.

I wasn't going to lie. I'd just say something like "I have an offer from another office, and they need to hear back by Y, but I'd prefer to work at Z." All of which is true. Now, am I hoping they assume that office is a strong competitor? Sure, but I don't see a big problem here.

My qualifications on paper are very strong. I think the delay is more due to my failure to sell my interest, and this is really my last chance to show that.

I don’t understand why they would care?

Anonymous User wrote:

encore1101 wrote:Aside from any moral judgments I may harbor towards you as a prosecutor, and rest assured I'm harboring quite a few, then it may potentially backfire.

If your desired office is on-the-fence with you, they may not feel the need to pull the trigger so soon, knowing that its still early in the cycle and they can still get someone as qualified as you later on.

op response edited out

Fair enough. I think its still a bit disingenuous to use it as leverage to hurry the other office if that other office is only a last resort, but obviously not as bad as straight-up lying to them.

Either way, my response is the same. If the preferred office is on-the-fence about you, then there's still a chance that the preferred office won't be willing to take the leap and hire you this early in the hiring season. It's hard to predict how these things will turn out because we don't know how many people the office is looking to hire, the strength of the other applicants, how many the other office has already hired, etc.

Is it typical for the preferred office to extend offers immediately, or very soon, after the last interview, and your situation is atypical? Or does the preferred office generally wait between the last interview and extending offers?

It's hard to say. From what I've read/heard, when they make offers it's generally within a couple days of the interview. But, in years past I can't find any record of them making an offer to a regular applicant until Thanksgiving or later.

I'm working off limited information, so both of those statements could be unrepresentative. And they may be doing things differently this year.

PM me please.