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From the hiring side, a (reasonable) expiration on the offer helps be fair to the other people who are interviewing, too. If I have a single position open and m

From the hiring side, a (reasonable) expiration on the offer helps be fair to the other people who are interviewing, too. If I have a single position open and multiple people interviewing, as a hiring manager I really need to know whether my top choice is serious once we're having a discussion about signing a contract - because if they aren't, or are still trying to land better offers from other places because they have concerns about my offer and aren't raising them, I have other candidates just hanging out and waiting. Its not fair to the other candidates to say "you're not my top choice from this round, please hang on just in case we need you", or to just stall while we see how things play out - nobody feels good about that. Granted, if you're getting very short exploding offers from big companies who are almost certainly hiring for a role continuously or in bulk, that would leave a bad taste in my mouth too. But if you're interviewing at the kind of company that may have budget for just a single new hire, and multiple people are interviewing, a reasonable expiration makes sure we're both mutually serious about eachother. I want to hire you enough that we've put together a (hopefully) compelling offer, you want to work on the team enough that you (hopefully) either feel good accepting the offer quickly or raising your concerns so we can discuss. If the offer isn't right for you, sitting on it as a backup in hopes that you can find something better is detrimental everyone involved.

tmpz22 6y ago
From a candidate perspective its very hard to evaluate what your compensation should be without first pooling multiple offers. Its also very hard to schedule many interviews in a short period such that the offer letters can be compared side by side. For this reason I generally indicate a 1-2 week response time to an offer letter. I almost always come in before that, maybe around 2-3 days, but I find it absolutely essential to accepting a job to have that breathing room. Even if I lose out of some offers, its still a better investment to be patient. For context I've been in the industry 6 years with 2 jobs and maybe 12 interviews to date. Currently going through interviews for $job-3.
- Sodman 6y ago
  Having multiple offers on the table certainly helps - but I feel a lot of people know what they're looking for in terms of comp range when they're going into the interview process. Recruiters will usually ask you up-front what your target comp range is before even submitting your resume to a company. At engineer salary levels in the US, +/- $5-10k isn't going to be a life changing amount of money (especially after taxes), and is likely within the realms of negotiations anyway. The main reason for big jumps in comp are if you're applying to vastly different types of companies with wide levels of stock options on the table, eg FANG vs seed-stage startup.
  - tmpz22 6y ago
    Conversely a lot of companies don't list their range and a lot of recruiters, hiring managers, and other groups, won't list an accurate range especially in "newer" roles like devops engineering, ml-ops, security roles, semi-management roles, etc. I've seen anywhere from $80k-$180k offered for the same role disclosed randomly throughout the hiring process - sometimes its listed on a job board, sometimes you won't know until the offer letter.
    - jjav 6y ago
      It's hard to get a fixed answer because there is no fixed answer. Only government jobs have a strict predefined salary, private industry everything is negotiable. The role may be advertised at a certain level but most of the time there is flexibility in going up or down a level based on candidate experience and how badly you make them want you. So 80K-180K can be a perfectly feasible range for the same job posting.
devoutsalsa 6y ago
I liked to ask the question, "If I extended an offer you like, would you accept it?" It helps facilitate a regular conversation about if & when someone would accept an offer, and if any steps can be taken to make an offer happen.
- tristor 6y ago
  That question is one of my favorite questions as a candidate because it provides the space to have a realistic conversation about compensation and what is necessary to make the move a reality.
- arenaninja 6y ago
  I was asked this question point blank and it took me by surprise. Then they asked me to name the comp for me to accept their offer and when I did they still exceeded it
  - DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
    It's good that they exceeded it. IIUC, generally accepted negotiation theory says that the first person to name a number loses.
    - kmonsen 6y ago
      Yeah, if I name a number and you exceed it that shows you want me. If you force me to name a number and you still come in below that is going to be a no even though I might have accepted it if you didn’t force me to give a number. I just had a 3 month interview experience with Apple and the recruiter was the worst ever, kept lowballing and giving small improvements and the hiring manager accused her of lying to him. It was a role that i care a lot about but after that interaction there was no way I could say yes.
- chrismcb 6y ago
  How is this a good question? The only acceptable answer is "yes" otherwise the interview is over.
vmception 6y ago
Exploding offers are bluffs. We all know the team wanted someone that could hit the ground running yesterday for the last 6 months.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  Yes, salespeople call it the impending doom close. If you don’t buy this car/house/holiday today it will be gone tomorrow.
- BossingAround 6y ago
  That is my experience as well. Every time I got an "exploding offer", I said "Thank you, but I need more time because I'm interviewing with other companies." This was always met with an "of course". That said, I never got an offer from something like SV startup or a FAANG, so I can imagine it's totally different over there.
  - vmception 6y ago
    > That said, I never got an offer from something like SV startup or a FAANG, so I can imagine it's totally different over there. It's not. They can choose to be dicks about it or not, but the way they use their leverage isn't any worse. Competition for employees is fiercer than other markets. You yourself can get away with being a dick to them.
- yellowstuff 6y ago
  That is certainly not true in all cases. It's possible that there's a second choice candidate, and the hiring manager wants to extend an offer to them as soon as the other candidate declines. Probably more common is an experience I was in- we found a good candidate, he wanted to finish other interviews before making a decision and I gave him a few weeks to decide, then later I regretted giving him so much time. It meant I had to either pause the candidate search for a few weeks or potentially waste my time and candidates' time interviewing people when there may not be an opening.
  - 6y ago
david38 6y ago
The hypocrisy is that to even get to the point where you have a 24 / 48 hour exploding offer, you (the candidate) had to often wait weeks to get a response to the application, phone screen, on-site, decision. So I don’t buy this fairness argument. If we’re talking about fairness, the process would be super quick, and then I would get a week to think about a decision that will affect YEARS of my life. To say nothing of things like asking previous salary, salary expectations, etc. Everyone knows why it’s done. If you wanted to be fair, the salary would simply be posted with the criteria that would influence it up or down. There is a reason unions and public sector jobs do this. Companies have access to far more market salary data than I do. It’s not close to fair. My job is far more influential to me than the company. It’s 100% of my income and yet I’m only one of many for the company. This should be taken into consideration.
- majormajor 6y ago
  One thing I am very careful about now is to try to keep offer terms from being a surprise. If I know what to expect comp- and offer-wise earlier, then an exploding offer is just the culmination of the weeks of lead-up and thinking on it. But sometimes recruiters don't want to give you that until offer stage. Other times, it's not so hard to get.
- nickff 6y ago
  Well, it's an asymmetrical situation; you had to wait to get an initial response, but on the other hand, you can keep interviewing while the offer is on the table. I think the explosion timer is simply a response to the fact that it's not an exclusive relationship (yet), but the company cannot explore other options while the offer is out. I am not even sure how to judge fairness; do you have a specific moral/ethical framework in mind?
  - heavenlyblue 6y ago
    > but the company cannot explore other options while the offer is out. That’s not how it works in most companies
- bluGill 6y ago
glitchc 6y ago
It’s quite fair. Are you hiring the best candidate or just any candidate? If the former, you make your offer to the best candidate and wait a reasonable time for their response, a week is usually sufficient. If you wish to offer to any candidate, offer to them all and see who accepts, but as you may find out, that’s not actually legal. But of course you are looking for the best candidate right? If so, waiting for their answer is ultimately the one that serves you best.
- anonymoushn 6y ago
  companies apparently have no issue rescinding offers, so I wonder whether it is really illegal to give verbal offers to n candidates and then rescind n-1 of them.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Maybe not illegal but seriously crappy and amoral behavior.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
      Immoral, not amoral.
Sodman 6y ago
You have to take it on a case by case basis. I think the important thing is to have a candid conversation between the candidate and the employer. "I have a final round interview in two days with another company that ends a 3 week interview process, and I'd like to compare offers" is a very different response to "Thanks for the offer, there's 8 or 9 more companies that I'd like to apply to before making a decision, can you give me 2-3 months to get back to you?". Having a conversation gives both the candidate and the employer another data point. How serious is the person about wanting to work for your company, and how much does the company want to hire you as a candidate? It also just feels like a healthier way to start the relationship.
dan-robertson 6y ago
I think I sympathise with companies hiring for a single position. It’s hard to organise timing with several candidates and recruiting is expensive. If they’re a large company, I see it as a signal that they believe the candidate has a good chance of finding a better offer elsewhere given time. I think from the candidate’s point of view, I don’t think the question is whether an offer is acceptable so much as whether it is the best offer in their search. Just as a company might like to interview several companies looking for a good fit and make an offer to the best even when others are acceptable, a candidate might want to receive several offers and accept the best even if others are acceptable. I think a company would be fooling itself if it told stories about selecting for passion or something. If you’re not seeing any competing offers in your hires, you should ask why they aren’t competitive? Maybe your offers are very good or so bad as to not be worth trying to negotiate. Or maybe you’re selecting for the most desperate candidates. Or maybe you’re good at finding hires who perform poorly under whatever interview conditions are most fashionable.
jjav 6y ago
Exactly, the company needs to know whether to tell the other candidates in queue to go away, or pause for a while. They can't wait indefinitly so an expiration on the offer is reasonable. That said, don't take the expiration date too seriously, it's not a hard deadline. If you want a bit more time just say so.

tmpz22 6y ago

From a candidate perspective its very hard to evaluate what your compensation should be without first pooling multiple offers. Its also very hard to schedule many interviews in a short period such that the offer letters can be compared side by side. For this reason I generally indicate a 1-2 week response time to an offer letter. I almost always come in before that, maybe around 2-3 days, but I find it absolutely essential to accepting a job to have that breathing room. Even if I lose out of some offers, its still a better investment to be patient. For context I've been in the industry 6 years with 2 jobs and maybe 12 interviews to date. Currently going through interviews for $job-3.

Sodman 6y ago
Having multiple offers on the table certainly helps - but I feel a lot of people know what they're looking for in terms of comp range when they're going into the interview process. Recruiters will usually ask you up-front what your target comp range is before even submitting your resume to a company. At engineer salary levels in the US, +/- $5-10k isn't going to be a life changing amount of money (especially after taxes), and is likely within the realms of negotiations anyway. The main reason for big jumps in comp are if you're applying to vastly different types of companies with wide levels of stock options on the table, eg FANG vs seed-stage startup.
- tmpz22 6y ago
  Conversely a lot of companies don't list their range and a lot of recruiters, hiring managers, and other groups, won't list an accurate range especially in "newer" roles like devops engineering, ml-ops, security roles, semi-management roles, etc. I've seen anywhere from $80k-$180k offered for the same role disclosed randomly throughout the hiring process - sometimes its listed on a job board, sometimes you won't know until the offer letter.
  - jjav 6y ago
    It's hard to get a fixed answer because there is no fixed answer. Only government jobs have a strict predefined salary, private industry everything is negotiable. The role may be advertised at a certain level but most of the time there is flexibility in going up or down a level based on candidate experience and how badly you make them want you. So 80K-180K can be a perfectly feasible range for the same job posting.

devoutsalsa 6y ago

I liked to ask the question, "If I extended an offer you like, would you accept it?" It helps facilitate a regular conversation about if & when someone would accept an offer, and if any steps can be taken to make an offer happen.

tristor 6y ago
That question is one of my favorite questions as a candidate because it provides the space to have a realistic conversation about compensation and what is necessary to make the move a reality.
arenaninja 6y ago
I was asked this question point blank and it took me by surprise. Then they asked me to name the comp for me to accept their offer and when I did they still exceeded it
- DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
  It's good that they exceeded it. IIUC, generally accepted negotiation theory says that the first person to name a number loses.
  - kmonsen 6y ago
    Yeah, if I name a number and you exceed it that shows you want me. If you force me to name a number and you still come in below that is going to be a no even though I might have accepted it if you didn’t force me to give a number. I just had a 3 month interview experience with Apple and the recruiter was the worst ever, kept lowballing and giving small improvements and the hiring manager accused her of lying to him. It was a role that i care a lot about but after that interaction there was no way I could say yes.
chrismcb 6y ago
How is this a good question? The only acceptable answer is "yes" otherwise the interview is over.

vmception 6y ago

Exploding offers are bluffs. We all know the team wanted someone that could hit the ground running yesterday for the last 6 months.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
Yes, salespeople call it the impending doom close. If you don’t buy this car/house/holiday today it will be gone tomorrow.
BossingAround 6y ago
That is my experience as well. Every time I got an "exploding offer", I said "Thank you, but I need more time because I'm interviewing with other companies." This was always met with an "of course". That said, I never got an offer from something like SV startup or a FAANG, so I can imagine it's totally different over there.
- vmception 6y ago
  > That said, I never got an offer from something like SV startup or a FAANG, so I can imagine it's totally different over there. It's not. They can choose to be dicks about it or not, but the way they use their leverage isn't any worse. Competition for employees is fiercer than other markets. You yourself can get away with being a dick to them.
yellowstuff 6y ago
That is certainly not true in all cases. It's possible that there's a second choice candidate, and the hiring manager wants to extend an offer to them as soon as the other candidate declines. Probably more common is an experience I was in- we found a good candidate, he wanted to finish other interviews before making a decision and I gave him a few weeks to decide, then later I regretted giving him so much time. It meant I had to either pause the candidate search for a few weeks or potentially waste my time and candidates' time interviewing people when there may not be an opening.
- 6y ago

david38 6y ago

The hypocrisy is that to even get to the point where you have a 24 / 48 hour exploding offer, you (the candidate) had to often wait weeks to get a response to the application, phone screen, on-site, decision. So I don’t buy this fairness argument. If we’re talking about fairness, the process would be super quick, and then I would get a week to think about a decision that will affect YEARS of my life. To say nothing of things like asking previous salary, salary expectations, etc. Everyone knows why it’s done. If you wanted to be fair, the salary would simply be posted with the criteria that would influence it up or down. There is a reason unions and public sector jobs do this. Companies have access to far more market salary data than I do. It’s not close to fair. My job is far more influential to me than the company. It’s 100% of my income and yet I’m only one of many for the company. This should be taken into consideration.

majormajor 6y ago
One thing I am very careful about now is to try to keep offer terms from being a surprise. If I know what to expect comp- and offer-wise earlier, then an exploding offer is just the culmination of the weeks of lead-up and thinking on it. But sometimes recruiters don't want to give you that until offer stage. Other times, it's not so hard to get.
nickff 6y ago
Well, it's an asymmetrical situation; you had to wait to get an initial response, but on the other hand, you can keep interviewing while the offer is on the table. I think the explosion timer is simply a response to the fact that it's not an exclusive relationship (yet), but the company cannot explore other options while the offer is out. I am not even sure how to judge fairness; do you have a specific moral/ethical framework in mind?
- heavenlyblue 6y ago
  > but the company cannot explore other options while the offer is out. That’s not how it works in most companies
bluGill 6y ago

glitchc 6y ago

It’s quite fair. Are you hiring the best candidate or just any candidate? If the former, you make your offer to the best candidate and wait a reasonable time for their response, a week is usually sufficient. If you wish to offer to any candidate, offer to them all and see who accepts, but as you may find out, that’s not actually legal. But of course you are looking for the best candidate right? If so, waiting for their answer is ultimately the one that serves you best.

anonymoushn 6y ago
companies apparently have no issue rescinding offers, so I wonder whether it is really illegal to give verbal offers to n candidates and then rescind n-1 of them.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Maybe not illegal but seriously crappy and amoral behavior.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    Immoral, not amoral.

Sodman 6y ago

You have to take it on a case by case basis. I think the important thing is to have a candid conversation between the candidate and the employer. "I have a final round interview in two days with another company that ends a 3 week interview process, and I'd like to compare offers" is a very different response to "Thanks for the offer, there's 8 or 9 more companies that I'd like to apply to before making a decision, can you give me 2-3 months to get back to you?". Having a conversation gives both the candidate and the employer another data point. How serious is the person about wanting to work for your company, and how much does the company want to hire you as a candidate? It also just feels like a healthier way to start the relationship.

dan-robertson 6y ago

I think I sympathise with companies hiring for a single position. It’s hard to organise timing with several candidates and recruiting is expensive. If they’re a large company, I see it as a signal that they believe the candidate has a good chance of finding a better offer elsewhere given time. I think from the candidate’s point of view, I don’t think the question is whether an offer is acceptable so much as whether it is the best offer in their search. Just as a company might like to interview several companies looking for a good fit and make an offer to the best even when others are acceptable, a candidate might want to receive several offers and accept the best even if others are acceptable. I think a company would be fooling itself if it told stories about selecting for passion or something. If you’re not seeing any competing offers in your hires, you should ask why they aren’t competitive? Maybe your offers are very good or so bad as to not be worth trying to negotiate. Or maybe you’re selecting for the most desperate candidates. Or maybe you’re good at finding hires who perform poorly under whatever interview conditions are most fashionable.

jjav 6y ago

Exactly, the company needs to know whether to tell the other candidates in queue to go away, or pause for a while. They can't wait indefinitly so an expiration on the offer is reasonable. That said, don't take the expiration date too seriously, it's not a hard deadline. If you want a bit more time just say so.