Public Doubts about Company Lead to Revoked Job Offer

Yes, you should seek advice from people in the know before deciding among multiple job offers. No, you should not do so publicly.

"Asking for career advice on the internet is great until your would-be boss gets involved. An engineer who was weighing job offers from Uber and Zenefits, both startups in San Francisco, mused about the pros and cons of each in a public post on Quora, the question-and-answer site. A few hours later, one of the offers was revoked," writes Quartz.

In his question on Quora, this engineer publicly expressed doubt that Zenefits was as valuable a name brand for his resume as Uber. Zenefits' CEO posted a public reply and rescinded the job offer.

People will argue whether the revocation was fair or not, and whether the revocation makes the engineer look bad, Zenefits look bad, the CEO look bad, or some combination thereof. And things will likely work out for this engineer, since Uber swooped in to secure great publicity by making him an offer. But he took a great risk by forgetting "cardinal rule of the internet: Never post anything publicly that you wouldn’t want a current or future employer to see."

Be careful. You might not have someone swoop in to save you.