A reasonable period is: You tell them up front your ideal timeline, that you have a couple of other irons in the fire (if you do), and you keep them informed of the progress of those other fires. And they do the same for you. Maybe you can't get a timing that works for both sides together, but that is OK. The pressuring is what isn't.

Right. What I found works well is "We'd like to extend an offer, but we'd appreciate a 48 hour turn around, so let us know when you'll be in a place to make that decision"

Assuming the time period is reasonable (a week or two), this works well. What I, as a hiring manager, want to avoid is you shopping my offer against 5 others for the next month. This gives people some safety net where they can get through their current interviews with other companies and then compare them at the same time and give me an answer with a known timeline.

I've been the recruiter in this position. I think it is unethical to string your runners-up along in this situation. You're essentially taking up their (and your) valuable time with little chance at success.

Exploding offers are the least bad solution. Give them 48-72 hours, with a small extension if they are currently talking to someone else.

If you don't like being a runner-up then you should negotiate with the candidate so that your company ends up in a more competitive position.

It's extremely hard for smaller companies to compete with the likes of Google and Facebook, who (I've heard) offer 25% more than everyone else. Which is why they end up with all the talent. Lather, rinse, repeat.

If this is a company's reason for not finding talent then the hiring team is simply not competent at hiring.

You can do any number of things to differentiate yourself from a FAANG to make your company more appealing. However, each candidate will have different values, so in order to gain an edge you first have to engage each candidate with the goal of discovering these values.

For example, this morning I was reading a recruiting email while considering a Sr SDE role on the AWS S3 team. They list 4 basic requirements for candidates, one of which reads:

· Able to debug, troubleshoot and resolve complex technical issues reported by customers

This screams of being responsible for legacy code and spending time on-call resolving other people's bugs. Can your company offer green-field development? Then congratulations, you've just gained an edge over a FAANG!

Other ways to differentiate are to consider the candidate's career trajectory. Maybe they want to become a manager, a technical lead, or pick up new technical skills. Can you place them on a team that will facilitate their professional development? If so then holy cow, this small company is looking better and better!

The point is that you can't go to war with a Goliath and expect to win using brute force. So if your opponent has 10 ships while you only have 1 then do yourself a favor and fight on land.

For context, I've had to lead and grow technical teams in the Seattle market, which means competing with Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and to a lesser degree Apple and Google. Having filled ~50 technical roles, I can say that succeeding in a competitive market requires you to be hands-on and highly engaged. And if your recruiting pipeline begins and ends with a submit form then you're going to make life really hard on yourself.

I assumed that jnwatson was talking about runner-up job candidates, who are in a holding pattern until the first-choice candidate accepts or declines the offer.

Thank you.

As long as everyone is up front about everything, there is nothing unethical about it.

If your prospect isn't buying what you are selling, you need to make your offer better.

Long enough for you to wrap up your other interviews.

I think the biggest issue is when the time limit isn’t moveable. If you’re finishing up interviews next week and the time limit cannot be moved, then that is a problem. Inflexibility from the get-go is a bad way to start a working relationship.

You can always accept the time critical offer and continue interviewing and then jump if a better one comes through.

There is no reason to be nice or considerate to companies, they will drop you in hot second if it is convenient for them.

Accepting an offer without an intent to follow through is fraud. If you think your counter-party is dishonest or ill-intentioned, then you should refuse to enter into any agreement with them.

He is going to follow through. Circumstances change.

I have a PA friend who was offered a job in Alaska, relocating his home and family from WA. Job was offered, signed, and less than two weeks prior to start, when the house was on the market, and trucks loaded, he got an email.

"The urgent care clinic has been sold to another company. As part of their review of the clinic, assets and employees, they are rescinding your offer indefinitely. Thank you for your interest in the position."

He, thankfully, though not without significant effort, was able to get compensation for some of the non-trivial expenses and inconvenience.

I'd argue _that_ was fraud.

I hear companies wanting a lot: "we're looking for someone willing to commit for three to five years, and not move on". Well, what are you willing to do for _me_? Or am I going to risk a "Hey, take a seat. As you know, the economy isn't great. Accordingly, today will be your last day"?

I have never been offered a contract when hired anywhere in the US -- well except for the Army. An offer letter is not a contract, often it says so in the offer letter near where it says you are an at-will employee that they can fire for any reason at any time.

I had a guy leave after a few months because the big company he really wanted to work at finally came through with an offer. I wished him well and was happy for him.

Unless the company is legally binding themselves to actually pay you when the time comes (as in, if for any reason they rescind the offer, you’re still paid for, let’s say, a year of salary, and this without you having to sue them), I don’t see any reason why the employee should feel any more obliged, legally or otherwise.

There is an intent to follow through when accepting the offer. Also, I'm sure you provide guarantees ensuring the candidate will actually be signed and not be quickly fired if you send out the offer letter, since sending the offer without the intent to follow through would be fraud?

If you want to play the legal game, the contract is void because it was signed under duress. Forcing the employee to sign in 24h qualifies as consent under duress, not free consent.

First, I don't care whether it's illegal; lying to people is wrong.

Second, the definitions for fraud vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but the course of action recommended here falls under the common definition of civil fraud:

>"Somebody misrepresents a material fact in order to obtain action or forbearance by another person;

>"The other person relies upon the misrepresentation; and

>"The other person suffers injury as a result of the act or forbearance taken in reliance upon the misrepresentation"

Third, a time limit is not duress unless there are other exigent circumstances. Duress is usually defined as:"threats, violence, constraints, or other action brought to bear on someone to do something against their will or better judgment." Getting someone to accept a slightly lower salary is not 'against their will or better judgement', it's just a negotiation.

Economic duress is recognized as duress. That the candidate is rejected from the job if too slow, having no job and no income to eat is quite a strong duress.

Obviously there would be extra context in practice, whether the candidate has a job, has already resigned, etc... The typical HN commenter in SF already working at FAANG might not be an ideal scenario ^^

Anyway, there's no fraud or misrepresentation, as long as the candidate intended to join the company at the time of signing. If anything, the candidate moving to another company is evidence that they were really looking to move, thus there was no misrepresentation on his intention to leave.

Agreeing to provide a service on a specific date, then offering the same service to others, and withdrawing from the first agreement upon receipt of a better offer is wrong. You might not agree with that, but it's how I see things. What would you think if the companies and individuals you interacted with were constantly backing out of signed deals?

It is not a lie to accept a later offered better deal. The better offer might never come through.

Would you really begrudge someone who left for an opportunity that is better for them?

You are mixing up loyalty with persons with loyalty to companies. The former is important the latter is foolhardy.

What would you think if a company regularly retracted offers upon finding better candidates? Opposite side of the same coin.

Companies do. It happens all the time with usually no recourse for the candidate.

One time a startup hired me and a buddy as contractors (expensive contractors) to help with their push to release. They had hired a bunch of junior (it seemed) marketing/sales/bizdevs types around the same time too. Two weeks later just about everyone was fired except the two expensive contractors (me and my buddy). I found out because I could hear some of the outgoing employees crying at their desk. One day they are eagerly working overtime to prep for a trade show, next day they are packing their stuff.

Soon thereafter, my project was canceled and I was reassigned to other work for a few weeks while I looked for somewhere else to work.

It's a Great Day at Hall Kinion was awesome on that gig too. I asked my handler to find me a new position, instead she setup an ambush meeting with me and the CTO to discuss why I wanted to leave. I couldn't believe it.

Employment offers in the US rarely establish contract. Employers often rescind offers that have been accepted by persons for a variety of reasons. Similar for employees.

Sometimes a party that can show they relied on the offer and then suffered money damages after it was rescinded can get some relief in court, but it is rare. Typically these cases are folks who accept an offer, quit their job, and move across the country only to have the offer rescinded or the position is eliminated soon after they start. Most often employees harmed this way lose in court unless there is strong proof that the employer knew they were ending the position before making the offer.

Absolutely. From one of my other posts:

> I have a PA friend who was offered a job in Alaska, relocating his home and family from WA. Job was offered, signed, and less than two weeks prior to start, when the house was on the market, and trucks loaded, he got an email.

> "The urgent care clinic has been sold to another company. As part of their review of the clinic, assets and employees, they are rescinding your offer indefinitely. Thank you for your interest in the position."

He got compensation without having to go to court when he made mention of the fact that it wasn't a surprise to the clinic that they were being sold, nor would it be unexpected that the new purchaser may (would) want a financial review, and final say on new hires.

That only applies when the company needs to fill a specific position. Specific positions that need a particular person are a minority of SWE roles. In fact it is bad management to let your team get in a situation where there are individual hyper-specialized roles with no knowledge shared.

I think it also depends on the size of the company/department. A company with 4 people might be looking to bring on a 5th to fill some specific role. In that case, the offer to the second choice depends on the response to the first. On the other hand, a department with 300 people might be looking to increase head count by 10-20%, in which case the offers to each person are quite independent.

Although the reality is that a lot of hires will still be hired by a manager targeting a specific need.

When I was hired the job description was even written for me.

I'm in more of a marketing organization but if I look around me, there are positions for vastly different skill sets, backgrounds, and preferences. Most of the people in the larger team couldn't do my job well and I couldn't do theirs.

Even if the roles aren’t specialized, there may not be enough headcount for multiple offers to be out at once.

There is no reason to not be honest about these types of things (unless of course you're doing something shady). If you want to fill the position quickly, you should say so. Now, of course, as a candidate if I heard that I would jack up my compensation numbers, but again, if you want to fill the seat quickly that's how it works.