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"the best negotiating advice is to have multiple offers" This is borderline "get in the job cannon and blast off to jobland" territory. Also - it can be terri

"the best negotiating advice is to have multiple offers" This is borderline "get in the job cannon and blast off to jobland" territory. Also - it can be terrifically difficult to line up multiple simultaneous offers because companies would rather explode their offer than generally let people get a better leverage. I know multiple companies who do this on purpose for this explicit reason. Is it inefficient from a market perspective? Of course. But since when has that ever stopped the owner class from oppressing the workers?

klipt 3y ago
It's generally easy to line up the interviews, at least at big companies you can pretty much pick your interview date. Then if you've done say 5 interviews (1 per day for a week), you can just wait for the first offer and use that as leverage to get the others to hurry up. Since they already have all the data they need.
- el_benhameen 3y ago
  I haven’t pursued it seriously so I don’t know how much you can hurry things along, but most of the interview processes I’ve seen are weeks long. Google even warns you up front that it’ll probably take on the order of months. So it’s kind of tricky to get them to all line up like that.
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    It's still valuable info. Like let's say you actually made it thorough all the rounds at Google per your example, and are 'stuck' in hiring committee. That's a huge signal to you that you are in striking distance of the level you interviewed for, even if you don't ultimately make it this time. That means you can for example use levels.fyi number for that level at Google as 'something that applies to me'
  - jacksnipe 3y ago
    It all depends. I have done first phone call -> offer in 2 weeks at FAANG.
    - dharmab 3y ago
      Or at the tier below FAANG- I did one afternoon of interviews at Adobe and got an offer a few days later.
ryan_lane 3y ago
If a company gives you an exploding offer, it's a strong signal that the culture of that company isn't good, or that they can't afford to hire quality candidates (or both). In companies like this you can assume you'll probably also get poor raises. In practice, if you get an exploding offer, unless you already think it's an extraordinary offer and love the potential opportunity, you can tell them that you won't be able to make a decision within that time. If the company is worth working for, they'll remove it. If they won't remove it, it's probably best not to take the offer.
- chadash 3y ago
  This is highly dependent on the role. I have been tasked with growing teams where my mandate is to hire X number of engineers at various levels. If I found X hires and then hire X + 1 shows up and was a great fit, the company would make an exception. No exploding offers necessary. On the other hand, sometimes you are hiring to fill a specific position rather than to generally grow a team. You have two candidates you like and you can't afford to let candidate 1 sit on the offer for three weeks. People treat it like it's nefarious on the part of the company to ever have an exploding offer, but sometimes it's just not practical.
  - ryan_lane 3y ago
    It may not be nefarious, but it's antagonistic to the candidate getting the exploding offer. If you're hiring for a particular role and the candidate is dragging their feet on the offer, you've likely not made a strong enough offer. Making the offer exploding limits their ability to negotiate. If you've made an offer to one candidate, and you're holding your response on another, you're already doing a disservice to that other candidate. They should know that you've extended an offer to someone else, and that you'll contact them if that offer falls through.
- gambiting 3y ago
  >>If a company gives you an exploding offer, it's a strong signal that the culture of that company isn't good, or that they can't afford to hire quality candidates (or both). I work in games - what happens for us quite often is that we'll interview ~10 candidates and 2-3 are actually good enough to hire. So the process is to give the top candidate the offer with a few days to accept it, if they don't then we move on to the next candidate because they also want to know whether we are proceeding or not - otherwise it's just rude(to the candidate). How does that indicate poor culture?
WalterBright 3y ago
It's hard to see how making $400k offers is exploiting the worker, rather than the worker exploiting the company.
- csaha 3y ago
  The first time I applied to work for a high frequency trading group in a hedge fund, my boss asked me what my desired comp would be? I replied 400k, to which he immediately responded saying that's extremely reasonable... So clearly, I f*** myself over in the negotiation. No company in our capitalist society pays any worker at any level. What the worker thinks they are worth- they pay the worker the absolute bare minimum that they think they can get away with. Doesn't matter if it's an entry level job, or ( like mine) a high end algo trading outfit etc
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    That is the same principle in any market, not just the labor market. It is based on the laws of supply and demand, not what the product's "worth" is (how would you even know that at a large scale without price discovery?).
  - intelVISA 3y ago
    Depending on skill and experience that salary request's an incredible feat of self-sabotage.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    When you sell your house, do you sell it for as much as you can? When you buy a house, do you make the minimum offer you hope the seller will accept?
- epups 3y ago
  Exploitation is not about whether each party is making a lot of money, it is whether one party makes a disproportionate amount of money over the value the other party produces.
  - 3y ago
vidarh 3y ago
I agree it can be hard to line up multiple at the same time, but unless you're in a desperate situation you can get much the same effect by being prepared to walk. I've talked offers up by being entirely opened that I walked away from an offer of $X, because it was a clear signal to the place I was interviewing at that I was confident I could land more, and I was confident I could because that first offer helped confirm I understood the right salary levels. It's not quite as powerful as having a simultaneous offer, but the point is not whether or not you go to a specific other company, but whether or not they believe a) you'll actually turn them down, b) you're worth roughly what you demand. Another offer, even if turned down will help in both respects.
sammorrowdrums 3y ago
Never accept an exploding offer. If they won’t give you more time, then let them see you’re prepared to let it lapse. It’s a ploy to create urgency when there is none, as is never in your interest as a candidate. I’d be very surprised if a single offer actually expired, it’s expensive to lose qualified candidates for the hiring company.
- __oh_es 3y ago
  Urgency isn’t a always just a ploy. My background is consulting and earlier-stage startups in the UK which may mean we’re in a different environment to what you’re used to, but the teams are often lean, and sometimes strained by the time we’re out to hire. Sourcing and screening often starts a few weeks/months before but generally we move quite quickly through technical to offer stages - I think its healthy and fair for both parties to keep expect these final stages around 1-2 weeks. Interviewing takes quite a bit of time and energy from the tech team and can impact team health, delivery, and ultimately bottom line - where our salaries come from. If we’re in the fortunate position to have a final candidate (or two - three), theres going to be an exploding offer because we need to get back to work, and we need to let other candidates know to move on. As a candidate its very fair to line up your interviews with a few companies and tell them you would like to make a decision by a particular date. If they cant accommodate you or extend an offer with a deadline prior to that, its on them. In my last job hunt no company turned down this request and two adjusted their processes to accommodate it.
  - doix 3y ago
    It's interesting you mention UK and urgency in the same sentence. In my experience, nothing in the UK happens quickly when it comes to permanent employees (I guess contractors are different). Everyone has 2-3 months of notice period, plus people usually take a month off between switching jobs to relax. So there's usually 3-4 months between when everyone agrees and when they eventually join. The only time things happen quickly is when someone is jobless, or if they already handed in their notice, they were going to join company X and you manage to snipe them in that 3-4 month period before they've started at company X.
adrianmsmith 3y ago
> it can be terrifically difficult to line up multiple simultaneous offers I've found that too. It seems like even if you apply at the same time, companies move at a variety of speeds. But there are things you can do to help align the offers temporally, at least a bit. - At the start of each process, ask how long the process will take (how many interviews, number of weeks from start to offer). They'll generally tell you. If you do this for every company, you have an idea of which companies are fast and which companies are slow. - The fast companies can be slowed down, a least a bit. It's Thursday and they want to schedule an interview for Monday? Say "Unfortunately I'm not available Monday to Wednesday next week, would Thursday next week work for you?" Answer emails the next day, or if they sent you one in the morning answer in the evening "after work". - The slow companies can be sped up a bit. Firstly, ask for interviews sooner, they might go for it, who knows. If you get an offer from one company, send an email to all the other companies that you have an offer but you'd like to get their offer as well, that might speed them up. None of this is guaranteed to work but it's worth trying.
fatnoah 3y ago
IMHO, ability to do this varies based on role, market, experience, etc. In my past 3 job searches, I went the multiple opportunity route. I let each company know that I was in-process elsewhere, what my rough timeline was, and that if things got to offer stage that I wouldn't share that info between companies (i.e. bring your best offer). I stated these things not as demands, but in a friendly, agreeable way. e.g. "I'm very interested, but I also have anothet good opportunity as well and want to be able to choose what fits me best."
robbintt 3y ago
I have asked up front if people attach timelines to their offers or use exploding offers and just decline to interview. Those offers are, in my experience, always less competitive.

klipt 3y ago

It's generally easy to line up the interviews, at least at big companies you can pretty much pick your interview date. Then if you've done say 5 interviews (1 per day for a week), you can just wait for the first offer and use that as leverage to get the others to hurry up. Since they already have all the data they need.

el_benhameen 3y ago
I haven’t pursued it seriously so I don’t know how much you can hurry things along, but most of the interview processes I’ve seen are weeks long. Google even warns you up front that it’ll probably take on the order of months. So it’s kind of tricky to get them to all line up like that.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  It's still valuable info. Like let's say you actually made it thorough all the rounds at Google per your example, and are 'stuck' in hiring committee. That's a huge signal to you that you are in striking distance of the level you interviewed for, even if you don't ultimately make it this time. That means you can for example use levels.fyi number for that level at Google as 'something that applies to me'
- jacksnipe 3y ago
  It all depends. I have done first phone call -> offer in 2 weeks at FAANG.
  - dharmab 3y ago
    Or at the tier below FAANG- I did one afternoon of interviews at Adobe and got an offer a few days later.

ryan_lane 3y ago

If a company gives you an exploding offer, it's a strong signal that the culture of that company isn't good, or that they can't afford to hire quality candidates (or both). In companies like this you can assume you'll probably also get poor raises. In practice, if you get an exploding offer, unless you already think it's an extraordinary offer and love the potential opportunity, you can tell them that you won't be able to make a decision within that time. If the company is worth working for, they'll remove it. If they won't remove it, it's probably best not to take the offer.

chadash 3y ago
This is highly dependent on the role. I have been tasked with growing teams where my mandate is to hire X number of engineers at various levels. If I found X hires and then hire X + 1 shows up and was a great fit, the company would make an exception. No exploding offers necessary. On the other hand, sometimes you are hiring to fill a specific position rather than to generally grow a team. You have two candidates you like and you can't afford to let candidate 1 sit on the offer for three weeks. People treat it like it's nefarious on the part of the company to ever have an exploding offer, but sometimes it's just not practical.
- ryan_lane 3y ago
  It may not be nefarious, but it's antagonistic to the candidate getting the exploding offer. If you're hiring for a particular role and the candidate is dragging their feet on the offer, you've likely not made a strong enough offer. Making the offer exploding limits their ability to negotiate. If you've made an offer to one candidate, and you're holding your response on another, you're already doing a disservice to that other candidate. They should know that you've extended an offer to someone else, and that you'll contact them if that offer falls through.
gambiting 3y ago
>>If a company gives you an exploding offer, it's a strong signal that the culture of that company isn't good, or that they can't afford to hire quality candidates (or both). I work in games - what happens for us quite often is that we'll interview ~10 candidates and 2-3 are actually good enough to hire. So the process is to give the top candidate the offer with a few days to accept it, if they don't then we move on to the next candidate because they also want to know whether we are proceeding or not - otherwise it's just rude(to the candidate). How does that indicate poor culture?

WalterBright 3y ago

It's hard to see how making $400k offers is exploiting the worker, rather than the worker exploiting the company.

csaha 3y ago
The first time I applied to work for a high frequency trading group in a hedge fund, my boss asked me what my desired comp would be? I replied 400k, to which he immediately responded saying that's extremely reasonable... So clearly, I f*** myself over in the negotiation. No company in our capitalist society pays any worker at any level. What the worker thinks they are worth- they pay the worker the absolute bare minimum that they think they can get away with. Doesn't matter if it's an entry level job, or ( like mine) a high end algo trading outfit etc
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  That is the same principle in any market, not just the labor market. It is based on the laws of supply and demand, not what the product's "worth" is (how would you even know that at a large scale without price discovery?).
- intelVISA 3y ago
  Depending on skill and experience that salary request's an incredible feat of self-sabotage.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  When you sell your house, do you sell it for as much as you can? When you buy a house, do you make the minimum offer you hope the seller will accept?
epups 3y ago
Exploitation is not about whether each party is making a lot of money, it is whether one party makes a disproportionate amount of money over the value the other party produces.
- 3y ago

vidarh 3y ago

I agree it can be hard to line up multiple at the same time, but unless you're in a desperate situation you can get much the same effect by being prepared to walk. I've talked offers up by being entirely opened that I walked away from an offer of $X, because it was a clear signal to the place I was interviewing at that I was confident I could land more, and I was confident I could because that first offer helped confirm I understood the right salary levels. It's not quite as powerful as having a simultaneous offer, but the point is not whether or not you go to a specific other company, but whether or not they believe a) you'll actually turn them down, b) you're worth roughly what you demand. Another offer, even if turned down will help in both respects.

sammorrowdrums 3y ago

Never accept an exploding offer. If they won’t give you more time, then let them see you’re prepared to let it lapse. It’s a ploy to create urgency when there is none, as is never in your interest as a candidate. I’d be very surprised if a single offer actually expired, it’s expensive to lose qualified candidates for the hiring company.

__oh_es 3y ago
Urgency isn’t a always just a ploy. My background is consulting and earlier-stage startups in the UK which may mean we’re in a different environment to what you’re used to, but the teams are often lean, and sometimes strained by the time we’re out to hire. Sourcing and screening often starts a few weeks/months before but generally we move quite quickly through technical to offer stages - I think its healthy and fair for both parties to keep expect these final stages around 1-2 weeks. Interviewing takes quite a bit of time and energy from the tech team and can impact team health, delivery, and ultimately bottom line - where our salaries come from. If we’re in the fortunate position to have a final candidate (or two - three), theres going to be an exploding offer because we need to get back to work, and we need to let other candidates know to move on. As a candidate its very fair to line up your interviews with a few companies and tell them you would like to make a decision by a particular date. If they cant accommodate you or extend an offer with a deadline prior to that, its on them. In my last job hunt no company turned down this request and two adjusted their processes to accommodate it.
- doix 3y ago
  It's interesting you mention UK and urgency in the same sentence. In my experience, nothing in the UK happens quickly when it comes to permanent employees (I guess contractors are different). Everyone has 2-3 months of notice period, plus people usually take a month off between switching jobs to relax. So there's usually 3-4 months between when everyone agrees and when they eventually join. The only time things happen quickly is when someone is jobless, or if they already handed in their notice, they were going to join company X and you manage to snipe them in that 3-4 month period before they've started at company X.

adrianmsmith 3y ago

> it can be terrifically difficult to line up multiple simultaneous offers I've found that too. It seems like even if you apply at the same time, companies move at a variety of speeds. But there are things you can do to help align the offers temporally, at least a bit. - At the start of each process, ask how long the process will take (how many interviews, number of weeks from start to offer). They'll generally tell you. If you do this for every company, you have an idea of which companies are fast and which companies are slow. - The fast companies can be slowed down, a least a bit. It's Thursday and they want to schedule an interview for Monday? Say "Unfortunately I'm not available Monday to Wednesday next week, would Thursday next week work for you?" Answer emails the next day, or if they sent you one in the morning answer in the evening "after work". - The slow companies can be sped up a bit. Firstly, ask for interviews sooner, they might go for it, who knows. If you get an offer from one company, send an email to all the other companies that you have an offer but you'd like to get their offer as well, that might speed them up. None of this is guaranteed to work but it's worth trying.

fatnoah 3y ago

IMHO, ability to do this varies based on role, market, experience, etc. In my past 3 job searches, I went the multiple opportunity route. I let each company know that I was in-process elsewhere, what my rough timeline was, and that if things got to offer stage that I wouldn't share that info between companies (i.e. bring your best offer). I stated these things not as demands, but in a friendly, agreeable way. e.g. "I'm very interested, but I also have anothet good opportunity as well and want to be able to choose what fits me best."

robbintt 3y ago

I have asked up front if people attach timelines to their offers or use exploding offers and just decline to interview. Those offers are, in my experience, always less competitive.