

Joel on Software: Exploding Offer Season - twampss
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/11/26.html

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schoudha
I interned at Apple Summer of 2006. I got great reviews and they even asked me
to work part-time during the school year, I agreed and mentioned that we can
figure out the whole full time thing later (i.e. what group I would work in -
I really wanted to work on Apple TV, iTunes, etc...).

Then, one day, I was asked to come into my manager's office. She said
"Congratulations, here's your full time offer!" I saw the deadline of 9/11 (2
weeks) and asked if I could have an extension. She quickly said that everyone
was expecting that I would sign today and there is no way she can extend it.
The recruiter also told me that she couldn't extend it and that she "didn't
care about my school's rules." I went to my career counselor to see if he
could make something happen (The offer was ok but all my friends got offered
at least 10% more - and the recruiter said the don't negotiate).

Then I get a call from my manager, she asks me to come to the office. I walk
in, she says "We're going to have to rescind the offer and ask that you stop
working part time." It was pretty traumatic, couldn't even check-in my latest
work - just had to pack my things and leave - I was actually fired!

Next spring applied to Y-combinator, got rejected...I now work for a search
engine in Mountain View, CA where they not only gave me my best offer but gave
me a 20% raise within my first year. Still, I wish I had a chance to work
full-time at the mothership in Cupertino.

~~~
ruddzw
I truly would believe that some companies like this one really don't fit in
with the fake pushing of deadlines. They believe that they really are _the_
company to work for, nay, not just a company, but a movement. If you don't
want to give it all up for the idea, then they don't want you. That's the kind
of thing to stay away from, unless you really do believe in the idea, whether
its your own or someone else's.

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teuobk
Slightly off-topic, but another really important thing to consider when
evaluating offers is the IP agreement: Make sure that you retain your rights
to work that you do on your own time.

If you're not careful, you might inadvertently sign away all title to that
cool little startup that you get going on the side. As a corollary, just
because "everybody signs the same contract," it doesn't mean that yours can't
be different -- but make sure it's changed before you sign.

~~~
log0
Truly. The converse is also true, it has got companies into trouble when these
companies offer great opportunities ( names, tasks, relationship, etc ) to
students, these students or their professors start to get really cheesy...

nasty stuffs.. IP, lots of companies/people learnt their lessons.

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johnrob
Here's a simple approach - just say yes to exploding offers. Then, when you
get the better offer, you can send the other employer an "exploding neg".

~~~
ph0rque
Wouldn't that be an imploding neg, for symmetry?

~~~
johnrob
Yeah, that's much better!

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aditya
Are there any college students that don't know this? I think Joel's growing
old :)

But, here's what I think is going to happen during this recruiting cycle, the
big name companies will stay on hiring freezes but still go to campus, some
people will get offer letters that are later rescinded. Happened during
'01-'03 and will happen again. Not sure about the smaller profitable
companies, I don't think they'll hire at all, as sales cycles grow longer and
revenues drop.

Great way to pitch Fog Creek's internships though.

~~~
time_management
_Are there any college students that don't know this? I think Joel's growing
old_

Yes. For a lot of college students-- probably a majority of those aiming for
private-sector corporate work, since it seems to be the default for the
unimaginative-- the "job problem" is this annoying project that emerges in the
senior year. Because it's an annoying project, as little time should be spent
on it as possible, at least during the "golden years" of college.

Even the college students who are relatively "on the ball" have very little
experience with the job search process and generally don't know what to
expect.

~~~
patio11
There is also an information gap here. If you're a typical American middle
class undergraduate:

1) You have negligible work experience at anything even close to important.

2) Your social circle is 100% composed of people who have as little experience
as you, or less.

3) Your adult mentors are mostly university professors. They operate in a very
quixotic labor market, mistakenly believe the rest of the world operates the
same way, and often have the business sense of a tadpole. Not a particularly
intelligent tadpole, either.

4) The only gainfully employed adults you know outside of academia are your
parents, and you have never discussed job searching with them. That may be as
well, since they have not been on the fresh meat labor market for a few
decades, and they are not in your industry.

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sokoloff
There's a quite legitimate reason to use exploding offers (beyond the implied
"bad" reasons Joel cites): to ensure that companies get exactly the number of
college hires that they want.

If you've got budget for "no more than 20" and a real desire to hit 20 on the
dot, then it's entirely rational (and I think reasonable) to extend exploding
offers to your top 30 candidates, and then as the prior offers expire or are
turned down, to extend offers to the "waitlist". It's not particularly
different from the college admissions process, or a season ticket renewal
process, daycare/pre-school admissions waitlisting, or any other means of
efficiently allocating limited resources over a period of time, and is
certainly not inherently evil.

~~~
tomsaffell
If people were merely assets then I might agree with this, but they are not,
they are _people_. They are people who one day you will work with, have lunch
with, and maybe have over to your house on the weekend for a BBQ. As such, I
find that for my own sense of worth I need to know that I treated them like
people from when I first met them.

There is a risk trade-off: risk of missing your target vs. risk of making
people feel like an asset. I'd rather miss my target by a little bit..

~~~
sokoloff
That's one legitimate viewpoint, but on the flipside, realize that I truly
believe I work for (and represent) a fantastic employer, and that everyone on
the waitlist who needlessly ends up working someplace else in the parallel
universe, in which we didn't use exploding offers, has been "harmed" by that
outcome.

IMO, it's not just about treating your first choice potential employee as a
person, but about treating your last choice potential employee as a person
too.

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tlrobinson
Replace "recruiter" with "venture capitalist", "college student" with
"entrepreneur", and "offer" with "term sheet" and you have an equally valid
essay.

~~~
netcan
Same asymmetric relationship where stronger leverage strength to increase the
asymmetry.

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flashgordon
Would this be the right place to advice a bit of caution against tech
companies that institute psychometric tests??

"would you run over a lady crossing a street? Yes, No, Maybe!"

Cant believe I didnt see that warning sign!!

~~~
jrockway
The correct answer is "Yes", right?

~~~
flashgordon
well it depends... the cost of cleaning up your car and the legal costs vs the
outright satisfaction... choices, choices!!

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mrbad101
Joel is still an amazing writer, regardless of how relevant his topics are
these days.

I can't help but to instantly read anything I see that pops up in my inbox
from him.

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staunch
I like patent lawyers more than I like tech recruiters. Really. The ones I
hate the most are the guys that call up a company directory and dial every
extension pretending like they have a relationship with you. I want to sue one
of those guys for harassment or something one day.

~~~
timr
Don't sue them...toy with them. Waste their time. Make them call you back, put
them on hold, string them along, then disappear. Like car salesmen, unethical
recruiters have a high tolerance for rude behavior. The only way that you make
an impact is by hurting their paycheck.

(I used to date a recruiter who did cold calls like this. She could handle any
type of rejection, but she _hated_ it when a candidate played her. Every time
she would rant about it, my faith in the world was restored.)

~~~
tlrobinson
Genius, scambaiting salespeople and recruiters.

We need a variant of 419eater.com for this.

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byrneseyeview
Eh. There are other reasons for an exploding offer. One is that companies
don't want to get into a bidding war, so they offer a tradeoff: accept a
certain offer, or find someone else willing to engage in a bidding war.

If you had exactly two job opportunities, and they were willing to negotiate
_down_ ("Oh, you'll take $80K? Great. $75K is the most we can do"), you'd
probably want to use an exploding offer, too.

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flashgordon
gees where was this 10 years ago when I got "tricked" into working for a
telco... was an absolute waste of 3 years of my time... i had cancelled
another interview at a really fine tech company to avoid the uncertainty...

ok again "tricked" is harsh as it was still my choice, prepared or not... well
live and learn!!

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kqr2
Perhaps there is a market for an agent who can negotiate salary and benefits
once you've been offered a job.

In theory, the agent will be experienced and can go toe-to-toe with the
recruiter on your behalf.

