Thank you so much for your advice! It really strikes a balance. No doubt I had a mix of positive and negative feelings about this at first but hey an opportunity is an opportunity. Thanks once again!
Forget the negative feelings because you don’t know enough to justify them.
Maybe they didn’t have the budget to hire you, and the other guy was cheaper. Now the other guy has flaked and the CEO has taken a 10% pay cut to hire you. I have been the CEO taking the cut to stretch for a candidate before.
You don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, so be classy and polite, they may be stretching for you
The manager's email just asks me whether I'm still looking for a job and whether I would want to work for them, but without actually attaching an official offer in the email yet.
If I follow what you said, should I also ask for an official offer right now and tell them I will get back to them asap? Something like this: "Yes, I would love to work at XYZ but I'm currently waiting to hear from company JFK and will gladly get back to you as soon as possible, at the meantime, could you please provide an official offer via email?"
That sounds ok (although you're not necessarily obligated to mention who JFK is). Also, it is possible that you might want to tell JFK you've just gotten an offer, and want to know how long it would be before you hear a decision. Respectfully and politely, of course.
Frankly, the fact that XYZ actually was honest with you about how things went puts them above average. They could have left you on the line without any news at all until they saw if the other candidate worked out.
Thank you! That's what I thought too. They could have kept me waiting while the other candidate was deciding. I do feel a bit offended at first because this is basically telling me I am the second or even the third choice...Anyway, I feel like continuing the interview with the other company seems like a better move than straight up accepting this job.
I get why you would feel this way, but perhaps the other person was something amazing. I'm sure you would admit that you are not the absolute #1 programmer in the world, and without knowing who the other candidate is, you don't know what it says about their regard for you. Maybe they just had two amazing candidates. But, I understand why one would feel that way.
