Delaying Signing Your Contract
Part 6 in the series Hitting Agents for Six is about delaying signing your contract before accepting it. You want to have a proper choice of contracts. So, you must delay the agency whilst you choose the best one for you. Many contractors get pressurised into signing the first one.
Making Agencies Wait
Once you’ve got the job, the agent is desperate to tie it up straight away and talk you into accepting a contract. You may have one or two other interviews to go to. You would like to be in the position of choosing between several.
That will be the last thing that the agent wants. What the agent will say is that the client wants to tie it up by the end of the day.
Pressure to Accept Contract
That will almost certainly not be the case. It is the agent who wants to talk you into accepting a contract by the end of the day. The client will almost certainly be happy to wait for a few days.
If it is a Tuesday, then the client will almost certainly wait till late on Friday afternoon. They will simply keep the second and third choices at bay.
Phone Interview
You have to buy time with the agency though. They won’t give you much time as regards accepting a contract if they can help it. You could probably say that you’ll give your decision late on Wednesday.
You will also call up your other agents and tell them that you have had a job offer, that you would prefer to have their job, but you are being pushed to make a decision on the other one.
Ask if it would be possible to bring the interview forward, or, if that is not possible, to have a phone interview with the client. If they ask how long you’ve got, tell them Friday lunchtime for accepting a contract from the other agency.
Further Interviews
Most clients will bring interviews forward. That’s especially if they have someone who is much in demand with other companies, but who would prefer to work at their site.
If you do set up further interviews, say one for the Thursday, and one for the Friday morning, then it might be an idea to go out on Wednesday when your agent is trying to get hold of you. He or she will have left a plethora of messages for you on your answerphone.
Nervous Agent
When you come in on the Friday evening, phone the agent back (who will have gone home by that time) leaving a message apologising. Say that you had to go out for some reason, but that everything is OK.
You will get a call first thing in the morning, possibly before you get out of bed.
The agent will be getting a little nervous and agitated by this stage, at the prospect of a juicy morsel slipping from his or her grasp. He will want to get things sealed up and talk you into accepting a contract and especially signing it.
Delaying Signing Your Contract
They will want to get the contract across to you as soon as possible. You do not have a fax of course. You do have email, but you do not have a printer in order to print the contract out.
They could send it over via courier, but you are going out soon for the day. So it would be better to send it in the post.
If they insist on sending it to a neighbour that would be fine. But of course the neighbour would forget to give it to you till the next day.
Agency’s Choices
The agent, of course, knows exactly what is happening. He, or she, knows that you have another interview and are holding back to see what happens thereB but their chess pieces are completely surrounded, and they have no more moves.
They can hardly call you a liar.
You get the contract on the Friday morning, but you have the interview then.
Agency and End Client
Don’t worry about the end client, as the agent will be keeping them ‘sweet’. They’ll tell them that everything is fine, and the client has a million other things to do anyway.
You would, of course, have told the other agents and clients that you would need a decision by Friday afternoon.
If you get turned down for both jobs, you should get your contract signed. Phone up the agency saying that you have, and they will probably arrange for a courier to pick it up.
Delaying Signing Yoru Contract is a skill contractors must have if they are to be successful.
