
Exploding offers are bullshit - aleyan
http://erikbern.com/2016/03/16/exploding-offers-are-bullshit.html
======
lostcolony
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.

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).

~~~
jzwinck
I used to work for a company that took that line. We were given a quota, say
to hire 5 people. I proposed sending out 7 offers with the expectation that
not all would accept. And if they all did accept we would certainly find a use
for them. HR rejected this idea.

So a lot of it is made up by HR folks who want hiring to appear in their
reports to be more predictable than it is.

~~~
gumby
That's unfair to the candidates: what if all seven accept? In this case HR is
doing the right thing.

~~~
jzwinck
Two extra employees in a big firm is nothing. As I said before, we could
easily have found a use for two more. Not that there was more than 1% chance
of it happening.

~~~
gumby
ah, I was thinking of a startup, or a company with more strict headcount
rules/constraints.

------
seibelj
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.

~~~
wolframarnold
You can't build a career on that behavior. Especially if you stick around a
place for a decade or so, you'd be surprised whom you run into and whose help
you might need down the road. Unless you're leaving town and the industry for
good, don't burn bridges.

~~~
civilian
Hell yeah you can. I'm the first to recognize that tech (and especially tech
in Seattle) is a small town. But, really, who is going to remember the one
person who quit on their first day because of a bullshit exploding offer? The
hiring manager, recruiter, and probably no one else. As an everyday grunt,
this stuff wouldn't even be brought up to me.

Having a 2 people added to a blacklist is fine. I've done far worse things to
my career.

~~~
hashkb
You shouldn't do it because it's wrong, and as a result you should feel bad
about yourself. You cheated at the game we're all playing and added to the
general mistrust that makes negotiating employment so shitty in the first
place.

~~~
passwordreset
Wow. Should one got an exploding offer, the correct behavior IMO is to tell
the recruiter to eat sh!t, or possibly, tell the recruiter that his attitude
sucks, and because of it, you'll be waiting until the day after the deadline
to make your decision. Alternatively, there is nothing about the GP or GGGP's
comments that make the described behavior wrong. That's incredibly naive. You
use the word _cheating_? "Cheating at the game we're all playing" is what you
said. What the hell are you talking about? The game is negotiation, and if you
can't do that, maybe you need to leave. If negotiating employment is shitty to
you, you're doing it wrong. Learn how to do it right, and maybe that will
adjust your attitude in the right direction.

edit: ok, you don't need to be as rude as I am, but I'm a known asshole, so
ymmv.

~~~
hashkb
Cheating = going back on something to which you've agreed. Once you sign,
you're done negotiating. You can tell someone to fuck off before you sign a
contract, but once it's signed, telling them to fuck off is cheating.

------
wheresmypasswd
Exploding offers are fine. _Sudden_ 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.

Avoid like the plague any company that only tells you about the explosion as
the grenade already has the pin out.

------
mathattack
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.

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.

I got burned by this a few days ago.

Exloding offers are BS for college hires but not experienced hires.

~~~
jzwinck
The self interested way to deal with this as an employer would be to give
offers to all three and tell them up front that there are multiple offers
being sent out and whoever accepts first wins.

~~~
epicureanideal
That's still psychologically stressful for the potential employee, but I'd at
least respect it for the honesty (assuming it is in fact an honest statement).

------
anonymous__
Exploding offers are actually explicitly forbidden by my top 20 university's
on-campus recruiting policy.

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.

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.

Needless to say, I was extremely unhappy there.

~~~
patmcguire
Microsoft? I'm only basing this off the implication in
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/11/26.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/11/26.html)

~~~
boardbrowser
I interviewed with Microsoft in university. After a half-day on-site interview
I was taken into a room and a recruiter made me an offer. She expected an
answer on the spot.

The recruiting staff had told me a week or two beforehand that this was their
process. I didn't know the details of the offer until the day, though.

------
nod
Of course unbounded doesn't work either... When does the company move on?

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.

~~~
convolvatron
exactly. we should be trying to create a process of mutual respect. its a big
decision for both of us, and if we are going to work together we should
understand each other's need to get more information, look at other
opportunities, and most importantly get a decision made so we can both get on
with our lives.

if a company says, 'you have until next tuesday to respond to this offer', if
it makes sense for me i agree, and if it doesn't i ask for more time (i.e i
have another interview scheduled tuesday).

i also never take negotiating or career advice from a recruiter :)

------
dade_
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.

------
pythonistic
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.

Exploding offers are a bad "job smell."

------
paulmd
As a recruiter you are _inherently_ 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.

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.

------
eshvk
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.

------
rdtsc
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.

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.

------
jakeisnotadog
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.

------
ghubbard
What about offering an 'early signing bonus' which pays you $x if you sign
quickly?

------
Kiro
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.

~~~
mistercow
Why not just say "we have one slot to fill and have made several offers. There
is no explicit deadline but if someone else accepts first, they're getting the
job.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
That's even worse. Not only does the offer explode, you don't know when it
explodes.

------
thembones
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.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Oh right, sure, I totally believe this.

Just like all of the other stories of "needing to hire someone immediately"
and having an open head count go unfilled for months and months. It's not a
credible story, I'm afraid. I've seen what it's like to hire people in tech,
I've been on both sides of it. And frankly the issue of timeliness is so far
down the list from being able to find someone experience and _competent_ who
you can trust as to barely be an issue. If you _think_ you need someone in
role RIGHT GODDAMN NOW, you're probably mistaken and need to readjust your
expectations and values. Good people are insanely more valuable than random
"butts in seats", it's worth it to make sure you're not alienating them or
driving them away with silly hard sell tactics.

------
calvinbhai
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.

A great way to test the waters, is to reply saying:

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".

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.

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.

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)

------
rdl
Giving an amount of time on the offer (30 days? 90 days?) seems pretty
reasonable. That's probably not what he means by "exploding".

------
throwawaytrain
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.

I took the job despite blaring klaxons in my head because I was desperate for
income. Didn't stay long though.

------
anexprogrammer
Depending on whether they're using an external recruiter, this is often a
tactic _of the agency._

It's very simply a tactic to decrease the chances of you going elsewhere. Like
_many_ agency tactics, it's all about the commission.

------
gumby
Depends on the deadline. If the offer expires in a week, that's hardly
unreasonable. They need to find someone and move forward.

If they expire in 24/48 hours I agree they're bull.

------
_delirium
Different but relevant discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11313193](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11313193)

------
hashkb
You should politely ask them to send you a new offer letter with no deadline
(and a higher salary). Don't whine, negotiate.

------
scottydelta
Well I have been interviewing with a few companies for internship, it's nice
to see things from recruiter's perspective.

------
codingdave
"I've done a lot of recruiting and given out maybe 50 offers..."

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.

------
matco11
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?

~~~
astanway
You refer to engineers as "monkeys", it's clear you don't have any respect for
them in the first place.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Quite the opposite. You misread him. He's contrasting hiring generic labor to
hiring specialized, skilled talent.

~~~
matco11
Exactly. That is exactly what I meant. Thank you.

