What is the procedure when having more than one department interested?

[wantiko]

Hi. I am in the hiring process with two local police departments and one federal agency. All are looking good right now and I am far in the process with each one. Assuming I have no background issues (which I don't), I see no reason why offers would not be forthcoming. This isn't a situation where I have just applied and have yet to test or interview. I have gone through all of those steps, and I am just waiting on final approval of my background.

My top choice would be the federal agency. But that process will take far longer than the hiring process with the local departments (mid-2010 for fed instead of early 2010 for the locals).

What is the protocol or procedure in a situation like this? I have the choices below:

1. Accept the offer with the local department and withdraw from all other departments and agencies. This would mean I would be a local officer (which is good), but I would not work in a federal capacity, which is something I have worked long and hard to get a shot at. That would be a tough dream to let go of, particularly as I am getting close.

2. Accept the offer with the local department, but keep moving forward with my dream position with a federal agency. I would leave the local department during the academy or shortly afterwards if I was offered a position with the federal agency. This would screw over the local department in a big way and burn any bridges with that department (and probably other local departments) forever. But if the feds did not offer me a position, I would not have wasted my chances with the local department.

3. Stick to my dream and not accept any local department offers until the federal agency has made a decision on me. This would mean that if the federal agency did not come through, I would have to wait for a long time until the local departments started hiring again, and they would see that I had applied previously but withdrew from the process after getting kinda far. The local departments may not be willing to take a chance on me again. So I would have blown my chances with the locals.

What would you do or advise me to do in this situation? Right now, I am leaning towards decision 1 or 3, because I don't want to take an academy position and then leave half way through or just after I graduate.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

(There is one other option, which is work as a local officer for a couple of years and then reapply for the federal position. But there is no guaranty that I will get selected or get through the federal system in the future.)

[Kimble]

It's best as an applicant to realize and accept two things:

1. Don't ever turn down an offer with an agency you'd be interested in working with (whether or not it's your "dream agency" or not).

2. There's no such thing as guarantees in hiring, especially in this job market.

It's up to you whether you want to accept an offer, and if so, continue in the process with another agency if your top preference doesn't make the first offer. I'm a fed, and it took about 3.5 years for me to be hired here. In that time, I worked as a local cop with 2 agencies. Being a local cop was a blast, and I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. I really would have missed out on a lot had I had a mindset of "I'm not going to accept any job if it's not federal," but only you can choose what's best for you.

[wantiko]

Thank you ROS. That makes perfect sense.