It's not always a bluff. Depending on the company, it can happen that there are a fixed number of positions, that they need filled as soon as possible. They need an answer from you, or they need to know to move on. It's not unheard of for a company to have multiple candidates who are good enough to hire, and not enough openings, and they don't want to lose one just because their first choice doesn't want to wait. That's not immoral, unethical, a bluff, or unfair, that's just the reality for them; they can't guarantee the offer will be open if you don't get back to them in time.<p>That said, as a candidate, there is no real cost to pushing back against the exploding offer, i.e., "Well, I am interviewing with X as well, and don't feel it would be fair to make a decision without speaking with them". If the company sticks to their guns, you will have to make a decision, but if it's a bluff, they may back off (and you can make of that what you will).
You can always sign an offer letter, and reneg later if a better offer comes along. I've done that before. The recruiter even had the balls to say, "You know, you signed a contract, it's a legal document." And I replied, "Massachusetts is an at-will state, just imagine me starting at 9:00am on the start date, and quitting at 9:01am." No one can force you to do anything, this isn't North Korea.
Exploding offers are fine. <i>Sudden</i> exploding offers are terrible. If a company recruiter tells you at the beginning of the process: "Hey, this interview process takes two weeks and we expect a response 3 days after your offer letter, which would be 3-5 days after your last interview", then I don't know if I'd be thrilled, but I wouldn't call it bullshit.<p>Avoid like the plague any company that only tells you about the explosion as the grenade already has the pin out.
I think it's ok for colleges to impose "no exploding offer" because students have less leverage, are still exploring, and are generally hired in larger batches. A company can always hire more people later if they miscount yield.<p>Exploding offers are much more acceptable in the real world. If I have 3 top candidates for a specialized position, and the one I offer takes 2 weeks, I will probably lose the others. They will know thus aren't number 1, and might get offers elsewhere. So allowing the candidate to shop the offer may cost me 6-8 weeks to restart the process.<p>I got burned by this a few days ago.<p>Exloding offers are BS for college hires but not experienced hires.
Exploding offers are actually explicitly forbidden by my top 20 university's on-campus recruiting policy.<p>Nonetheless, a very famous tech company that was once very prolific, but by 2012, most people considered as their "second choice" company routinely issued exploding offers to CS students in late August/early September before anybody had a chance to interview elsewhere.<p>To this day, they still recruit on our campus, and while one of my best friends reneged on them to work at Google (which actually in retrospect turned out to be a very wise choice), I wasted a full year of my life at this second tier company; the actual employment experience proved to be as shady as their recruiting experience.<p>Needless to say, I was extremely unhappy there.
Of course unbounded doesn't work either... When does the company move on?<p>I like to ask, "When would you like to get back to us?" and then have a very reasonable conversation about any expectations or constraints.
Exactly! I'm interviewing with 2 companies and they both had weeks of interviews, and both finally decide to move forward, but take over a week to get the offers together. One has the gall to tell me that they require a response in 48 hours and speaks of internal SLA's, while the regional president of the other company calls me to apologize about how long their process takes and how thrilled they would be if I joined their company.
It's a thought provoking article.
I don't think recruitment policies and processes are given due consideration as a competitive issue by many business owners and managers. I'd expect that the impact of a team that is relatively less confident, less skilled in negotiation and potentially even less financially stable than their competitors would be very substantial.
TekSystems gave me an exploding offer, probably to discourage me from looking into other opportunities. The employment agreement was so bad (and violated state labor laws) that I walked away from that one quickly. On the other hand, my next employer, where I'm starting late next month, wanted to give me all the time I needed to consider the position: it requires self-management (rather than s boss telling you what to do) and a 2000 mile relocation.<p>Exploding offers are a bad "job smell."
As a recruiter you are <i>inherently</i> in competition with everyone else. Interviewing implies no specific commitment to the candidate, and conversely no specific commitment to the employer. That's how the game works. Offers are inherently temporal as well as financial - too late or too low are equally bad.<p>Exploding offers are often BS all around, but candidates are inherently exploding due to the nature of the job market. You can't sit around unemployed waiting for an offer. And many startups can't sit around waiting for candidates to shop around either.
Erik hired me for Spotify. At the time, amusingly enough the three BigCo offers that I had involved pressure tactics exactly like this. Very glad I pushed back on the pressure back then to work with his team.
It got me out of college. I had two offers. Second was a time-bomb with only a few days to decide. It turned out ok, but it was definitely uncomfortable.<p>The second time I looked for a job, I asking for another couple of weeks. And they let me have it. That was a good sign. If they hadn't, I would have worried about them a bit.
If you think the examples in this article are bad, try getting a job as a teacher in the UK - they will offer you the job on interview day, and if you don't take it there and then, go to the next candidate. No time to consider your options, certainly no weighing between 2 options you have.
This article is bullshit. Let's say you have one position and five candidates. Without any form of deadline the process would be dragged out until everyone has made up their mind, explored all different opportunities etc. It's completely unreasonable.
Exploding offers are necessary. I agree they should be discussed with the candidate at the interview so there is full disclosure. That being said, I have a role I need to fill and I'm aggressive with hiring. If the candidate doesn't want to work for my company on it's merits (assuming my offer isn't way off base of course) then I want to move on to someone who does. The candidate's time is important, but so is the company's.
I think this bs is more prevalent in the Bay Area companies. I once got an exploding offer for 24 hrs! I politely rejected it since they were not willing to agree for a week's time that I asked for.<p>A great way to test the waters, is to reply saying:<p>something to the effect of "<This is a great offer and I strongly believe I'll choose this>" and then add "I have a two more interviews in the last stages and will be hearing back from them by end of next week. To be fair to everyone who has put in the effort, including me, I'd like to finalize by end of next week. Please let me know if this can be accommodated".<p>Once I even mentioned that it's in a company's best interest that I choose the offers after I heard from all, instead of agreeing now and then taking up on a better offer.<p>All this is possible if you are in a commanding position in your career (and financially stable). Otherwise, it takes a lot of confidence to call their bluff.<p>I have interview with about 20 companies in the last 10 yrs, only one has refused to budge from its initial exploding offer (and I'm glad I didn't go for that one)
Bloomberg gave me an exploding offer once. The HR drone told me over the phone that they like to close candidates quickly to make sure that they don't pursue other opportunities.<p>I took the job despite blaring klaxons in my head because I was desperate for income. Didn't stay long though.
Depending on whether they're using an external recruiter, this is often a tactic <i>of the agency.</i><p>It's very simply a tactic to decrease the chances of you going elsewhere. Like <i>many</i> agency tactics, it's all about the commission.
Depends on the deadline. If the offer expires in a week, that's hardly unreasonable. They need to find someone and move forward.<p>If they expire in 24/48 hours I agree they're bull.
Different but relevant discussion: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11313193" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11313193</a>
"I've done a lot of recruiting and given out maybe 50 offers..."<p>I'm a coder who has never actively recruited, yet still over the course of my career have given out maybe 20ish offers, and been in the interviewing process for countless others. I'm questioning the deep expertise implied here.
This post is so wrong in so many ways. First, it is extremely bad practice to leave commitments of any kind open in perpetuity.
Secondly, if you are looking to hire 3000 monkeys and you are searching for people that are good enough to pass you minimum standards, sure you can wait one month and see if each candidate you make an offer to joins your company. What if you are hiring only 20 people, 10 of which for very specific, key roles? You want the PERFECT candidate for the position, and you cannot keep the process open forever. you have a budget, you cannot make multiple offers for the only one position you have to fill?!
Third, you do want to know if the candidate wants to accept the offer because he likes your company and the position or because he cannot find anything better. Many would argue that is much better to hire a candidate that would put passion in what he does, rather than hiring a mercenary.
Finally, what other business activity do you do without a clear timing commitment?