All, I would greatly appreciate your advice. I am in a situation where I presume lots of others have been aswell: I am in the middle of changing employers. I have an offer from 1, and two more companies still in the pipeline with interviews in the following 6 week period. HR from the company I hold the offer from ( offer made 2 weeks ago) has called me to pressure me into signing and returning the contract - I have hinted at accepting the offer on the phone. However, I do not want to miss the other 2 chances, as these are both more 'prestigious' employers. But at the same time, I do not want to forgo this offer for it is an excellent one aswell. Question: how bad, from a legal standpoint, would it be to sign the contract, mail it - and then if recieved another offer - tell them I have changed my mind? I know morally and professionally it is the gutter - but Im not too worried about my scruples - rather if this choice can affect referrencing / other offer: can I mess the whole thing up?Thanks!

I think it's reasonable to want to keep your options open as long as possible, and I say that as a HR person at a consulting firm.If I were you, I would verbally accept the offer, but tell them that I don't want to resign from my current role until January (maybe I'm getting a bonus?), so could they hold off on chasing references until I've confirmed that I have resigned.Recruitment teams are pretty realistic about this kind of stuff.

Thanks for your reply. But what happens if I sign, post the contract - and then tell them that I dont want to come anymore? What legal powers do they have ? Is this really deep water to be in, or does it happen regularly?

Technically, once you have signed the contract I think you need to give them the notice period specified in that contract if you want to end the employment relationship. So, commonly this will be one or three months. If your start date wasn't planned for another six or nine months for example, then effectively it's a moot point. If you were meant to start the next week they would be within their rights to require you to attend work - if you don't then they could fire you and almost certainly wouldn't pay you. But if you're starting another job then probably that wouldn't be a major concern for you.Pragmatically, once you start putting off signing your contract and getting references it'll become pretty obvious your heart's not in it. The question you need to ask yourself is, if you are always going to consider this a second- or third-choice job, will you ever be happy in it? Or will you be moving on again after six months?

It happens all the time. Your employment contract doesn't have legal force until the day you start work. You are perfectly within your rights to withdraw.

There is no legal obligation unless and until you set foot on company property after signing the contract - even if you sign the contract for the offer, and they have it in hard copy, if you have not entered their property they have no legal recourse.

Just as long as you never want to apply or work there again :-)