I doubt this. By what mechanism will recruiters at company A use to communicate your failure to accept their offer to company B?
Accepting every offer and then reneging on all but one marks you as a second-rate employee. It's the behavior of the desperate.
No it's not. I can see why you might think it's shady, but it's not desperate. It's the behavior of someone afraid to push back, which probably happens more to college students than to people that have been working for a few years.
Read the comment -- I said that all likelihood you could get away with it. But as your career progresses, don't underestimate how small the industry is -- especially Silicon Valley.
All I'm saying is that if your first instinct in every situation is to say "How can I lie and get the best of this?" you're not going to be as successful as you think. People aren't dumb.
Also, with that attitude, you'll tend to attract others looking to take shortcuts and rip you off as well. Those people will also be smarter than you.
Software is a great field because it's not a zero-sum game. You don't have to rip someone else off to get ahead. These days software people are tripping over jobs on the way to work, so I'm not sure where the desire to micro-optimize comes from. Just apply to jobs that seem interesting, and accept only the offers where you would actually want to work.
Life is unpredictable so sometimes you might have to back out. But I wouldn't make a habit of it.
The original article is good reminder to push back when you see shady behavior. And it will actually work out in your favor because you will appear more desirable.
How will they find out? In the long run, because we dont live in a vacuum. Ive been called by colleagues to get my opinion on someone they want to hire because they have some reason to suspect i migh have dealt with them inthe past.
Accepting every offer and then reneging on all but one marks you as a second-rate employee. It's the behavior of the desperate.
No it's not. I can see why you might think it's shady, but it's not desperate. It's the behavior of someone afraid to push back, which probably happens more to college students than to people that have been working for a few years.
If you don't play the game, you lose.