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Many have second thoughts about new jobs

Call it buyer’s remorse. Premature extrication. Or ”Oops, I should’ve checked with the spouse” syndrome.

Whatever you call it, University of Florida basketball coach Billy Donovan is trying to join a long list of mind-changers by accepting, then rejecting, an offer to coach the NBA Orlando Magic.

Corporate recruiters estimate that one in 40 to 50 new hires — from basketball coaches to software engineers — back out at the last moment, often turning down big promotions and lucrative raises.

”Human beings are human beings,” says Kaarla McKenzie, president of Source Executive Search/Consulting near Tampa. “You can’t really guarantee your product when your product is a human being.”

In running his quick reverse, Donovan has lots of company:

• In January 2004, Miami Dolphins ex-quarterback Dan Marino accepted a job as senior vice president of football operations with his old team, and 22 days later changed his mind. ”I was very honored,” he told Inside the NFL. “But as time went on, I just felt it was a better situation to be here at HBO and be at CBS. For my family situation and me and my lifestyle.”

• In April 2006, Wendi C. Thomas, The Memphis Commercial Appeal’s first black female metro columnist, agreed to become a columnist for The Baltimore Sun. But the day before her new column was to begin, she returned to Tennessee. ”My heart is in Memphis,” she told Romenesko, the Poynter Institute’s journalism website. Thomas declined to comment on Tuesday.

• In 1992, NFL coach Bill

Parcells, then an ABC analyst, backed out of a deal to coach the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. ”I just feel like I couldn’t make the commitment to do it,” he told reporters. Said Tampa Bay owner Hugh Culverhouse at the time: “I feel like I’ve been jilted at the altar.”

MANY REASONS

In South Florida, people voice a variety of belatedly realized problems — housing costs, crime, hurricanes, schools, rudeness — for backing out.

In 2006, Song Kosumsuppamala, 39, a Thai-born software engineer working in Austin, Texas, moved his wife and three children to South Florida to work at a high-tech firm in South Miami. He signed a one-year lease on a house in Weston.

Three months later, at his wife’s urging, the family moved back to a different job in Austin. They didn’t like the schools, and they found housing costs too high and South Floridians inhospitable.

”I’ve traveled the world from Japan to Taiwan to China,” Kosumsuppamala said. “I’m open-minded, but the people in Miami are rude. They say it’s just the way they are.”

Kosumsuppamala paid a price. Between selling his house in Austin, breaking his lease in Weston and paying part of his moving expenses both ways, he says he’s out about $50,000.

Two weeks ago, language teacher Mary Alexovich, 58, returned to Miami from a year teaching in Fort Lauderdale. Even such a short distance can create culture shock.

“Everybody has dinner so early. And you can’t get an espresso in anybody’s house. I felt like a foreigner.”

South Florida isn’t the only place where reality strikes.

Years ago, Frank Nero, a town administrator in New Brunswick, N.J., was offered a job at better pay as economic development director of Evanston, Ill. He and his wife visited the Chicago suburb in the fall, when the weather was crisp and the leaves colorful, and accepted the job.

They visited again in the frigid winter. They were aghast.

”Lake Michigan was frozen over,” he says. “I wanted to be warmer.”

So when his old boss made a lucrative counteroffer, he backed out of the Evanston job. ”I guess it was a bit of buyer’s remorse,” says Nero, president of Miami-Dade’s Beacon Council, whose job is to recruit new businesses — and keep them here.

`TRAILING SPOUSE’

‘The problem is sometimes called `the trailing spouse,’ ” Nero says. ‘A company president says, `Guess what, honey. We’re moving to Miami,’ and there’s resistance.”

South Florida housing prices also bring backouts, says Carmen Matos, of Korn/Ferry International professional recruiters of Miami. “The cost of living is a problem. People used to come here because they could get good value for money in housing. Now I have a candidate coming from Boston who says Miami prices are as steep as back home.”

When the University of Miami lured researchers from Duke University in North Carolina to its medical school, it gave them temporary housing subsidies of up to $300,000.

Even when new hires back out, companies have less control than they think, says Broward employment lawyer Dana Gallup. “You cannot under any state’s laws force someone to work for you.”

Many contracts include a ”liquidated damages” clause stipulating an amount the departing applicant must pay if they breach a contract. Such clauses are often settled privately to avoid negative publicity.

Not all costs are financial, says Roberto Schaps, president of Turkel, the Coconut Grove ad agency.

”You go through the whole decision-making process and maybe decide against another good [candidate],” he said. “The biggest thing is the cost of not being able to get going.”

In one case, he hired a ‘’superstar” who wanted a signing bonus, moving expenses and other perks.

“He came here, we gave him all of that, and after three months he was gone. You learn your lessons.”

At McKenzie’s corporate recruitment firm, about one in 50 candidates back out because the current boss has made a financial counteroffer, she said. That doesn’t always turn out well, either.

“Depending on which study you read — 60 to 93 percent of the people who accept counteroffers will resume their job search within a year.”

One out-of-town marketing exec who worked with a Fortune 500 company contacted McKenzie seeking a more stable job here. He got an offer with more pay and a bigger title. But when his old company made a better counteroffer, he went back.

Fifteen months later he was laid off, relocated at his own expense and took a new job at his old salary.

Backing out of jobs also can give a candidate a black eye with recruiters.