By JOE GRIMM
If you have enough talent, connections or luck to get more than one offer at the same time, you’ll have to choose. During internship-offer season, the best and luckiest can get offers within hours of each other. Some offers arrive just hours after candidates commit to someone else.
For most, one offer is fortune enough and the only way that there might be more than one at a time is if they get busy and shake the bushes a little.
Because hundreds of internship offers drop in the space of just a few months and because so many candidates send mass applications, you could face a negotiation challenge at internship time that you will never see again in your career.
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First, enthusiastically thank the editor who made the offer, but do not commit. Whether you ultimately accept this internship or not, this is the newspaper that told you your long search has succeeded. You will be working somewhere. You should express your gratitude—and then get as many details about the offer as you can.
Negotiate the amount of time you have to decide, unless this is one of your top-choice newspapers. What is a fair amount of time? Any reasonable editor should give you a couple of days to think over an offer. A week is generous. If you ask for more than a week, your hidden message is, “I’m not really excited about this offer, but if I’m desperate, I’ll take it.” This phone call may be your first step in establishing an important relationship. Some editors demand an answer right away.
The most severe was an editor who told the candidate that the offer would go away when he hung up the phone. That is extreme and unusual—but it can happen.
Once you have established a deadline with the editor who made the offer, call the newspapers you’re more interested in, explain that you have an offer on the table and ask them where they are in their selection process. Call only the newspapers you prefer to the one that made the offer and where you think you have a decent chance.
Imagine how you would sound if you called a newspaper, said that you had an offer somewhere else and, when the second newspaper also made an offer, you said, “No, thanks!”
Be careful with these calls. You don’t want to come across as a player. This can happen if editors compare notes. That is more likely to happen if the newsrooms you’re calling are owned by the same company. Even if they’re not, there are lots of hidden, informal networks among journalists.
One corporate recruiter who worked with dozens of newspapers found that several of his newspapers were jockeying for a candidate he had been promoting. The recruiter came to believe the student was playing the editors against each other. The recruiter went from promoting the guy to wanting to have nothing to do with him. He told the candidate—and he told the editors.
Never, ever falsely imply that you have an offer from one paper to draw out an offer from another. It is dishonest and it can be dangerous.
Recruiters and internship coordinators know each other and, although we are guarded, we do talk. If two editors get to talking after the interns are selected and discover that someone has lied, that person’s credibility is shot. This news will travel fast and it will dog you.
As you call places and explain the situation, you’re likely to get one of four answers. Here they are, and this is what they mean:
- “Well, we want to make an offer, too.” You now have two offers (at least). Get all the information you can about this one to make a decision. If you’ve started with your top choices, you can stop calling others and will soon have to turn down the original offer.
- “OK, we’re very interested in you, too. We’ll get back to you.” This is difficult. Press them for an answer before the first newsroom’s deadline and ask when you can get details. Until you have a firm offer, though, don’t stop trying.
- “Congratulations. That’s a good offer. If I were you, I’d take it.” Between the lines, the editor is telling you that an offer is unlikely.
- “It’s too early. We will not have a decision in time for your deadline.” This is a gamble. If you want to hold out for this paper, passing up other offers, ask what your chances are and when the decision will come.
This period of checking for other offers can be very stressful. You don’t have a lot of time and you have to find several editors and pressure them.
If you’re lucky, one of your favorites will make an offer. It gets awkward when a hoped-for paper tells you that it is not close to decision time and can’t even tell you how good your chances are. You’ll have to let those options go or gamble and wait. If you decide to wait, tell the slower company that’s what you’re doing so they don’t assume you took the early offer and drop you from their list.
If you wind up with more than one offer, get as many facts on the table as you can in the first calls. It will save you from making second calls. Some people make decisions with lists of pluses and minuses, others go with their feelings and most use a combination. If you can’t shake out any more offers, get ready to accept the original offer with grace, enthusiasm and gratitude.
Think of this as a free sample. You can find more internship strategies in “Breaking In: The www.JobsPage.com guide to Newspaper Internships.”
