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I am very, very fortunate to have an offer for a firm that I really love. However, I am also pending at a few (2+) places now post-CB. They are aware of my offer's expiration date. I know it may be premature, but I'm trying to figure out how to handle proceeding if I need to nudge for an answer.

If there remain firms pending, is the correct thing to send an email the day before my offer expiration date to reiterate my interest? While I would like to give the firm an extra day, I think sending it the day of my offer expiring would apply way too much pressure. I also will probably accept around 3-3:30pm as not to risk being out of business hours and not to look like i clearly was waiting for something else to come along.

And if there is a firm that I would definitely accept an offer from, is it okay to state that in such an email? I don't want to sound desperate. And if I do say that, it seems even moreso the right answer to send that the day before my offer expires. The day of would probably be too much.

Thanks! I've never been in this situation before so it feels great but also stressful, lol.

I would allow for more than a day. If your offer expires on a Friday, for example, I think any nudge should be sent by Monday.

Aeroplane wrote:I would allow for more than a day. If your offer expires on a Friday, for example, I think any nudge should be sent by Monday.

In my situation, the problem is, my CBs will have taken place around 7-10 days before my offer expires. So that’s why it doesn’t make sense to nudge them 4 days early since in that case it would surely be unreasonable.

Anonymous User wrote:I am very, very fortunate to have an offer for a firm that I really love. However, I am also pending at a few (2+) places now post-CB. They are aware of my offer's expiration date. I know it may be premature, but I'm trying to figure out how to handle proceeding if I need to nudge for an answer.

If there remain firms pending, is the correct thing to send an email the day before my offer expiration date to reiterate my interest? While I would like to give the firm an extra day, I think sending it the day of my offer expiring would apply way too much pressure. I also will probably accept around 3-3:30pm as not to risk being out of business hours and not to look like i clearly was waiting for something else to come along.

And if there is a firm that I would definitely accept an offer from, is it okay to state that in such an email? I don't want to sound desperate. And if I do say that, it seems even moreso the right answer to send that the day before my offer expires. The day of would probably be too much.

Thanks! I've never been in this situation before so it feels great but also stressful, lol.

Do you prefer the firms that you are waiting on? I was in a similar situation, emailed a firm, reminded them of the pending offer, and said I understand that if they could not give me a response by X date, but if they could, I would accept. I got a call with an offer about an hour or so later.

Anonymous User wrote:

Aeroplane wrote:I would allow for more than a day. If your offer expires on a Friday, for example, I think any nudge should be sent by Monday.

In my situation, the problem is, my CBs will have taken place around 7-10 days before my offer expires. So that’s why it doesn’t make sense to nudge them 4 days early since in that case it would surely be unreasonable.

Absolutely not unreasonable. I was in a similar boat, asked for advice, and did basically the same thing. One offer was expiring on Friday, but I had a callback with a firm I preferred on Monday. After the CB, I followed up the next morning with an email saying I would definitely accept if offered but I needed to hear from them no later than Thursday (with plans to call on Friday, potential awkwardness aside, if I hadn't heard anything). I got a call from the partner with an offer on Wednesday and accepted on the spot.

In your case, it's way better to "nudge" them too early and leave them time to run through their processes - they might need to round up feedback forms from the people who interviewed you or have some partners and recruiting folks sit down together - rather than wait to avoid the appearance of unreasonableness and end up putting the firm in a position where they can't give you an answer in time.