On December last year I received and accepted an offer for Company A, a big one in the Software Dev business. According to that offer, I should start this fall.

Since the acceptance, my personal circumstances have changed. I moved to Silicon Valley and got married. For personal reasons, I want to look for a different job near my current location and reject the offer from Company A (located in a different state), but I'm afraid of the problems it will bring.

I'm not worried about the legal implications. I understand that it's me who causes this problem and I will pay the services that Company A already provided me with. My biggest concern is the bad reputation that this could bring me. The companies in the valley talk among themselves, and rejecting an already accepted offer could make me look bad. Am I being too paranoid, or are there real possibilities of me being flagged as "not to hire" in other companies?

[Edit: I don't have another offer at this moment. I plan on look for another job]

[Edit2: Company A still hasn't provided me with any benefits, only some informative talks by phone. As for the offer, I accepted by mail, I didn't sign anything. Anyway, I'm not (too) concerned about the legal or economic problems, but about the bad reputation ones. I don't want to end in a blacklist outside Company A (I already assume my future chances of joining again Company A will be close to zero).]

[Edit3: As for the duplicate links. I'm not asking if it's ok or unprofessional to reject an already accepted offer. I know it can be a dick move, but that's what I have to do now. I'm asking about the chances of me having problems looking for jobs on Companies B, C, D, etc. after rejecting Company A offer]

marked as duplicate by Joe Strazzere, gnat, IDrinkandIKnowThings, scaaahu, yochannah Apr 28 '15 at 12:39


  • 3
    Do you already have a different offer available for the taking? Or are you planning the reject the offer that you have in hopes of getting another offer soon? – Brandin Apr 27 '15 at 10:01
  • Has Company A already provided you with benefits, like moving/relocation expenses, housing, etc? Have you signed paperwork, or just verbally accepted the offer? Need more specifics. – DevNull Apr 27 '15 at 16:36
  • One thought you may want to explore is working remotely for Company A. Tell them of your situation and see if they are open. If not then you can politely turn down their offer. You owe them nothing. – Bill Leeper Apr 27 '15 at 20:48

Realistically, there is no down side to declining their offer before you start (unless you've taken money, relocation, etc. from them or signed an actual employment contract).

  1. It's not that unusual for someone to pull out of a job offer (just like it's not that unusual for someone to quit a job with any amount of time in). It's not even unreasonable to apply for another job there in the future and not have problems (especially if you begged off nicely, and since it's a large company).
  2. There is no "global blacklist" for them to put you on even if it did annoy them. Or a cabal of company HR people that get together and talk about "people that left them."
  3. If you somehow left a small startup in a bad place, they might talk smack about you to other people they know from other small startups. But large companies, a) you're just not that important to them, b) they have a lot of other things to care about, and c) their HR is usually so aware of legal exposure they won't talk about candidates or employees to other companies under other circumstances.

Unless your change is somehow a very high profile, jackhole kind of thing to do (are you a illustrious VP they have started to build an organization around, for example, and you are bailing for a competitor?) then you are definitely overthinking it.

  • It's collusion for companies to talk with each other like that and illegal as hell. It's actually a factor in the big class action suite against the big silicon valley players. The only company it may hurt you with is Company A. – Bill Leeper Apr 27 '15 at 20:47
