By: David Ross
You’ve spent much time an effort on your job or internship search. Your efforts attending various recruiting events, applying for numerous positions and enduring countless interviews have left you in an interesting predicament – you’re fortunate enough to have secured multiple job or internship offers. Or perhaps you’ve received one offer and are awaiting final decisions from other employers. What should you do and how should you handle the situation?
For starters, take a deep breath and try to relax. Consider that you’ve already made great progress in your search and may be very close to finalizing your job or internship plans. Here are some things to consider when deciding whether or not to accept a job or internship offer:
Be aware of your timeline to decide on the offer. While this may seem obvious, the more important point is to consider how much time you have to obtain the information you need to make an informed decision. It can be very tempting to wait until a day or two before your deadline to make a decision and, all of a sudden, realize you’re missing some crucial information that may be helpful for you.
Review your priorities and interests. Now that you know the employer wants to hire you, take a moment to revisit your priorities, interests and goals for the position. When applying for many positions it can be very easy to submit your application without scrutinizing any particular job or internship closely. So take some time to really evaluate your offer. While it may difficult to find a job or internship that meets all of your established criteria, having an understanding of how well this opportunity “fits” with your expectations may relieve some of the angst you encounter making a final decision.
If you are interviewing or awaiting final word from other employers, reach out to them with an update. You may want to reach out to companies you have interviewed with to provide an update on your status and find out more about their decision-making timeline. Perhaps they may consider making a final decision on your status before your offer deadline but always be very professional when explaining your situation and avoid making demands.
Accept that uncertainty may be part of the decision-making process. In an ideal world, everyone would know all of their final options before making the best informed decision. However, with some employers recruiting for positions with different hiring timeframes, you may not have the luxury of knowing all of your options at the same time. This happens quite frequently, so the more comfortable you feel making a decision under these circumstances, the better prepared you will be for similar situations that may arise later on in your career.
When you find yourself deciding on a job or internship offer, be confident and trust your judgment. While you may feel your decision will dictate the rest of your future career opportunities, realize there are many paths one can take to reach desired career goals. You can always seek opinions and solicit advice from those you trust, but be sure to make the final decision on your own – after all, this is your life and your future.
They spend most of the time carefully watching it…, waiting for just the right moment to pounce on the string when it looks like they have the greatest chance of catching it unawares. This strategy seems much more successful than wildly chasing the string around and around. You could say, then, that the cats are investing a lot of time preparing for each pounce, resulting in an increased likelihood of success. Try the same thing when it comes to your 
– information they can use to be even angrier at me for there not being any nice surprises or delicious treats for them! At Penn, you can also look for opportunities to find delicious treats behind different doors – if by “delicious treats” you mean the opportunity to join student groups, meet new people, learn new skills, and get involved. You’ll find that the experiences you gain from getting involved will actually help to open more doors for you later on – after all, the best resumes not only illustrate academic and research skills, but also transferable ones like leadership, management, team-work, and problem-solving.
But cats have an amazing ability to focus on the positive, to suggest that they actually meant to fall, because falling somehow gave them the opportunity to do something that they had wanted to do right from the start – like licking their paws, for example. Lots of things don’t quite go the way we plan. You might be doing research that isn’t leading to any useful results, through no fault of your own. When applying for jobs, you need to focus on the positive aspects of these seemingly negative experiences. You can phrase every research set back as an opportunity to try new methods or techniques, or to seek out new collaborations. Many employers value initiative and problem-solving skills, and showing that you can face adversity with an upbeat and enthusiastic attitude will be seen as a positive. What you have achieved as well as how you have been approaching challenges in your work are both important.
so this is something my cats could do better. I have three cats, and they don’t always get along. As long as they have their personal space they are good, but any peace in the house doesn’t last long. Believe me, I have tried explaining the benefits of having a good network of contacts to them – especially when I find them yowling at stranger cats through the window, but they won’t listen. Although I sometimes find them making an effort to make new professional contacts, they could certainly do more. The problem is that cats like to live in the moment. To them, time spent working on relationships for some future benefit takes away from time that could be spent in the here and now trying to gnaw through a plastic container containing muffins (no, I don’t know why they like muffins so much). What they don’t realize is that I might be more likely to share some of my muffin with them if they sat on my lap more, and at least pretended to be friendly towards me. That’s the thing about networking – you are never guaranteed that it will help you find a job, but if you treat it as an opportunity to build long-term, professional contacts and share information (i.e., give and take), you will eventually reap some benefits. Of course, it is almost certain that actively “not networking” won’t be of much help at all – unless you have really sharp claws and teeth, and really want that muffin.
Whether it is pawing at my face at 2am to be let in to the toasty bed on a cold night, or taking a sip of nicely filtered ice water that I left (for me) on my bedside table, cats are very resourceful! By hanging around the kitchen in the morning, the cats get to sit in the warm rays of the morning sun and might get the opportunity to lick the last few drops of milk from my cereal bowl once I am done (or before if I am not looking). And the cats obviously see anyone getting up from the sofa to refill their cat-licked water glass after supper as an invitation for them to sit on the just-vacated and nicely-warmed cushion. One of my cats has perfected the “you are not still using this seat, are you?” look. Are you making use of the resources available to you? Have you attended some of the workshops, discussion panels, and career fairs that Career Services organizes? Have you scheduled a one-on-one counseling sessions with an advisor? Have you explored 
