CAN A COMPANY JUST WITHDRAW A JOB OFFER?

NICK'S REPLY

This is why I tell people to insist on seeing in advance all documents that are incorporated by reference into the job offer. These documents, which you might think are standard and nothing to worry about, can include gotchas that might justify the withdrawal. Read the employee policy manual, the benefits guide and related rules about non-disclosure, non-compete and invention rights. It's this fine print that sometimes enables a company to withdraw an offer. For example, company policy might say that you must provide a pay stub from your old employer before you start work. If you refuse, the offer is withdrawn. It's up to you to read the company's rules before you accept an offer.

Sometimes a company can just claim that its business situation has changed, forcing it to withdraw the offer. For example, it may have lost a major client, or the economy may have turned unexpectedly.

Your best protection is to never resign your old job until you know all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed on the new job. And never turn off other opportunities you have been working on until you have settled in to your new job.

Your friend might benefit from getting an attorney's guidance on the legal issues. Finally, remember that job candidates sometimes renege after accepting a job and a company usually has to live with it. This blade cuts both ways.

THE HEADHUNTER TIP

An often misunderstood aspect of job interviews is what happens next and when. Waiting around for the phone to ring is frustrating. You can exert significant control over what happens next by making a commitment in order to get a commitment.

Depending on how you handle the end of your interview, you can wait forever, or you can make something happen now. At the end of the interview:

Make a clear commitment to the employer. I want this job.

Get a commitment. Ask, Where do I stand?

Establish a schedule. Ask, What's the timetable for a hiring decision?

To get a useful commitment, you must make a commitment yourself. Never ask a manager where you stand without explaining where he stands with you. That puts your request for candid, immediate feedback on solid ground. That's how you'll get answers at the end of interviews.

THE HEADHUNTER CHALLENGE

You're trying to get an audience with a certain hiring manager to discuss a job, but you have no contacts who know her. You wish you had access to some of the huge networks some people have on LinkedIn. Your own network is pretty small. What's the best way to get connected to that manager you want to meet?

POLL

2. Forget about LinkedIn and social networks. They are overrated!

3. Keep working at the limited contacts you have. One of them will know someone who knows the manager.

4. Don't use only LinkedIn. Use all the social networking services you can.

(Cast your vote for The Headhunter Challenge poll online at (your newspaper Web site here). We'll post the results along with The Headhunter's expert opinion.)

COMMENTARY (FOR PUBLICATION ONLINE)

Nuts to that, says Duncan Watts, one of my favorite social scientists. It's better to know "grunts" who don't know many people than to chase highly connected people.

I don't care much for social scientists, and the reason I like Watts' social research is that his Ph.D. is in theoretical and applied mechanics. He's not really a sociologist! But much of his research is in networks -- how people connect with and influence one another. Watts wrote the best book I know about networking, "Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age" (W.W. Norton, 2004). But don't expect lightweight tips. This book requires you to read carefully and to understand the research.

So how does this help you land your next job? You may not have a wide network of contacts to help you meet the manager you want to work for, but are you out of luck? Nope. In fact, chances are better that you know a lowly programmer or marketing assistant (who doesn't even work for the company) who can be very helpful. In other words, it can be better to reach out to one or two credible grunts who are not well-connected or influential themselves. Duncan Watts' research confirms this view.

To show this effect, Watts replicated Stanley Milgram's famous "small world" experiments. Milgram's renowned research revealed what we now commonly refer to as "six degrees of separation." The idea is that if you want to contact someone you don't know directly, you can do so through a chain of friends that will on average include about six links. You contact a friend who contacts one of her friends ... and so on until one of those contacts leads you to the person you want to reach. Hence the notion that there are about "six degrees of separation" between any two people.

In 2001, Watts used a Web site to recruit about 61,000 subjects. He asked them to use e-mail to "ferry" messages to 18 targets worldwide. The targets were random people that his subjects did not know personally. The idea was to send notes to people known to the subjects, asking them to forward the notes to their own contacts, expecting that eventually someone would be able to pass the note on to one of the 18 targets.

Watts found that Milgram was right: The average length of the chain was roughly six links. But when he examined these pathways, he learned something interesting. Watts found that hubs -- highly connected people who know a lot of people -- weren't important. Sure, they exist. But only 5 percent of the e-mail messages passed through one of these superconnectors. The rest of the messages moved through the country along much more democratic paths, zipping from one weakly-connected individual to another, until they arrived at the target. What I refer to as grunts (normal people doing basic jobs) -- not big-time contacts -- are the key to good networking.

You need not yearn for acceptance to the networks of people on LinkedIn who have enormous numbers of connections. Getting connected to people who have small networks is sufficient. What matters is that you use the contacts you have, no matter how weak they may seem. You don't need a well-connected headhunter or a notable and widely known CEO of a company to refer you to a hiring manager. Weakly connected people are good sources of referrals that can pay off nicely. Which proves something I've said for a long time. If you want to find your next good job, go hang out with people who do the work you want to do, no matter how prominent they are. The bonus is that they might appreciate and welcome your contact!

COPYRIGHT 2009 NICK CORCODILOS