The job market seems to have really picked up. I am getting lots of calls. Any advice on juggling multiple opportunities?

I am not surprised you are getting a lot of activity on your job search. This year has certainly heated up; however there is a fine line between creating quality activity in your job search and creating chaos. Being disorganized and overextended in a job search may affect you years down the road if you burn a bridge. So then the question is, how many opportunities should you consider at one time? Our answer: as many as you can realistically manage.

Multiple phone interviews are fine as long as you do not put one interviewer on hold, to pick up another line, but at some point you need to narrow down the playing field. For instance, if you are gainfully employed and you have only so many vacation days to take for onsite interviews, you had better choose carefully. If you are unemployed, you can probably handle as many as three on site interviews a week, if you are organized and have a good travel agent. Getting stuck in an airport coming back from one interview—thus missing another is not good. Interviewing for practice sounds good, but is a quick way to burn bridges for the future. Make sure that the interviews you choose to go forward with are opportunities you have a real interest in; i.e., if you want to stay local, don’t get on a plane to Nebraska just to “check it out”.

The danger of juggling too many opportunities is that you can forget which opportunity is which, your follow up becomes sloppy and you appear not to be engaged in any particular opportunity. This can hurt your chances in the long run of landing the right opportunity.

Employers do not mind a little competition when it comes to landing quality talent, but leverage is a fine line too. It is okay to tell a potential employer that you have another interview on the table, but it is considered bad form to have six. With multiple competing companies, many firms will choose to go with another candidate who is more of a sure thing and/or seems more focused and interested on what they have to offer.

In closing, make sure to tell your recruiter where you stand in your job hunt and where you are submitting your resume. No surprises and candid conversation will help you stay on sound footing now and in your future job search.

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