When I was looking for a job I had applied to quite a few positions. Several lead to phone interviews, and a little less than that lead to in-person interviews.

The place I landed at (company A), I had applied to a few weeks before hearing a response back. During that time I had done a few other interviews. One had been over the phone with another media company (company B) here in town. I didn’t hear back from them and it was a lot of WordPress stuff so I wasn’t particularly thrilled with that. When company A got back with me we did an interview and then the next day another to meet the owner of the company. They explained to me what the job was, who their client base was, the benefits etc. Lastly, they explained they wanted to do a contract job to make sure I could do it before hiring me. The project was still in the design stage they would get back to me with the details soon.

The next week or so, the same person from company B called me back. He had forgot he already called me once but this time it was for an in person interview. No problem as I live within 2 miles of their offices. An hour later, company A mentioned they would like the contract-to-hire to start ASAP. As someone who had been looking for a job for a little while, could this get any better? I let them know that the following Monday would be the best and that I have an interview with another company (company B) this Thursday but I wasn’t sure if I would take the company B position if offered.

What came next was quite the shocker. Minutes later I got a response back asking if I was offered the job right now (hired, no contract work), would I cancel my interview? Even though it was a risk, I said yes. Once I got the employment agreement and made sure everything was as expected I fired off an email to company B canceling my interview. So by applying to multiple jobs, you might be able to get a better offer when finding that perfect place.

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