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[freundish]

Hi:
A friend just had a job offer rescinded within a day -- chair emailed hu with news that hu had been selected, had quick phone conversation with chair, then within 24 hours got a call saying that the 'informal" offer was no longer an offer.
Anyone know of anyone in a similar situation? Any advice? I think there is nothing to be done, but the behavior is bad bad bad!

[old_school]

no advice, but that bites!  sorry for your friend's bad luck.

[georgiagirl]

I don't have any advice either, unfortunately.  Did the chair say why the offer was pulled?  I wonder if the search committee's recommendation was not supported by the Dean or faculty personnel committee (or some such group) and that was why the offer was rescinded. 

[theseaturtle]

Hello Freundish-

I am very sorry to hear about your friends situation.  I was in a similar situation about three years ago.  I received several tenure track offers at SLAC's in the Northeast.  I accepted a tenure track position at an SLAC north of Boston, turning down the other offers shortly thereafter.  After waiting a few weeks for the "contract" to arrive in the mail, the chair of the department at the SLAC (who had been keeping in contact) emailed me to let me know that they would be rescinding their offer due to "budgeting issues."  You can only imagine how furious I was.

Luckily things worked out for me in the end and I was able to obtain employment at an even better SLAC where I am very happy.  The experience still stung though, and I let just about everyone in my industry know name of the college in question and the details of the situaion.  On the flip side, they havent been able to attract anyone in the last three years and are still struggling in many ways (not just financially).  In my opinion it serves them right!  

To answer your question...Can your friend do anything?  Probably.  Especially if they have a written offer and turned down other offers upon "accepting" their "informal" offer.  Should your friend do anything?  Probably not.  Its a small, small world and sometimes it is just better to turn the other cheek.  In my case, I had a written offer via email and probably could have sued since I could prove that I had other offers on the table and turned them down (losing work) once I accepted the offer at this college.  However, the only thing that would have done for me was to get me black listed in the SLAC world making it difficult for me to find work.  I chose the higher road and things eventually worked out.

Best wishes to your friend....It will get better.

[zharkov]

Lousy story, tell you friend not to be shy about letting others in the field know about the school.

Also, the silver lining is that is provides good evidence for others not to call your search officially done until you have a signed contract or letter of appointment. 

[larryc]

There is nothing to be done about the job, but do tell the world about these unprofessional weenies.  In fact, start here--who are these clowns?

[mended_drum]

If you identify the culprits, make sure to be more specific than merely naming the institution.  This could be the fault of a single person, such as the scc, jumping the gun, rather than a symptom of a wider problem.

[oseph]

I had an offer rescinded -- phone offer, with salary details, etc.  Then a week later, word from the dean that the appointment had not been approved.  In my case, I think there is something fishy going on because I have heard through the grapevine that none of the other candidates has been offered the position.  The school has plenty of money, so maybe it is a budget issue, but I'd be surprised.  Maybe just bad blood between dean and department.  In any case, everyone has advised me to keep my mouth shut about it, because of what everyone else has said about being labeled negatively for complaining.  So no, nothing to do except let advisers know so that they (and not your friend) can spread the word about bad hiring practices.

[nothernprof]

I have no doubt that some schools are shady and badly behaved.

But at my public university in the recent past, we had a budget crisis and all hires were frozen that had not reached the signed contract stage. We were outraged, mortified, stunned. But there was nothing we could do. Just another perspective.

[sciencephd]

These posts are chilling.  Except in the case of a budget freeze, really is no excuse for such behavior.  These institutions/departments should be outed.

[miromad]

I know of a situation where the candidate turned into a total prima donna during the negotiations, which went on for over two weeks.  Folks guessed that the candidate was simply stalling while waiting for other offers to come through.  Even so, they continued to negotiate in good faith.  However, the requests became increasing outlandish, especially for an assistant position.  The offer was eventually rescinded when the candidate became so uncooperative that the Dean and entire SC became incensed and realized they no longer wanted the person to join the faculty under any circumstances.  I'm not saying that the OP's friend did anything remotely like this.  I describe the situation simply to say that sometimes a school's decision to pull an offer is warranted. 

At my current institution, we had a candidate barter and negotiate extensively only to finally admit that she had never really seriously considered taking our offer.  She admitted that she'd accepted our campus visit simply in the hopes of obtaining an offer she could use as a bartering tool.  Even though many people do this, she should have kept that information to herself as it was just plain rude and disrespectful, particularly given how much time, money, and energy goes into preparing for each campus visitor.  This person also waited a full two weeks to inform us of that fact, during which time our second place candidate accepted an offer elsewhere.  I couldn't help but wish the offer had been pulled when she started to be very difficult during negotiations, but our Chair knew that was not kosher, so she gave the candidate the benefit of the doubt.

[freundish]

Thanks for your responses. I've directed said friend here, you've given comfort as well as good advice.

[ruralguy]

I don't know if this is exactly what happened with OP, but the scenarios that others relate really show that no one should EVER leak out "informal" offers, or say "you're our top guy/gal" unless they have the authority to do so. If the buck doesn't stop with them, then they have to wait for the Ok from whomever..Dean, rest of dept., etc.

Of course, offers can be rescinded anyway, but such behavior should be avoided at nearly any reasonable cost.

[tenured_feminist]

I think this happens more frequently than we'd like to believe. My partner once got some very encouraging talk from a department head while on the interview that came to nothing and another time got an email with a job offer "pending final approval" that ended up not coming through.

A wise department head makes it completely clear in talking and in writing emails that an informal offer is not an offer.

My sympathies to your friend, Freundish. It's very hard to have the brass ring in your hand only to have it slip away for inscrutable and inexplicable reasons.

[hrvatski18]

This happened to me once.  The chair of the SC shook my hand and made me a verbal offer.   After some very fast negotiating, I accepted.  She walked me up to Human Resources to complete some paperwork and said a contract would be in the mail within a few days.

It never came.  I never heard from the institution again.  E-mails and phone messages went unanswered.   Never knew what happened, but I got a much better offer from a much better institution a month later.

And I do know of a colleague who negotiated so hard with an institution that they rescinded their offer.   Then a few weeks later offered the position to another colleague of mine, and they gave him exactly what my first colleagues had asked for!  I can only imagine it was her brusque manner that put them off and not the salary she was requesting.