[Justen]

I recently went through some interviews and was trying to line up offers at the same time but what ended up happening was one would come in, and I'd still have a week or two process with the other company. Even telling the 2nd company I had an offer or one coming soon to speed things up made it impossible to get two offers at the same time. One offer would sit for a week and that seemed to be as long as they were willing to wait, so my question is how did you line these timetables up so that you can get more than 1 offer without risking 1 expiring?

[bcbrown]

The best way I've found to handle that is while scheduling the final interview. The one that's further along, ask for the in-person to be a week later then they'd proposed. Try to schedule the two in-persons at the two companies within a week of each other.

The other (risky) way to handle it is to say "I understand that you need a timely response because you may have other candidates you need to get back to. If you need a response this week then unfortunately I'll have to withdraw from consideration, as I won't be able to get back to you by then." Of course, you have to really mean it, and you have to be ok with them going ahead and withdrawing the offer.

[om3n]

That part was luck. These two companies both got me through their interview process at the same time, and they both gave me about a week to respond as well.

I'm also in a unique situation- I think I am actually sort of hard to replace, as I live/work in a smaller Midwest city. My manager has no interest in hiring a remote developer, and we've been struggling to hire people for the past year or so.

I don't think I'd try this at every company or in every city.

[virtuexru]

What city if you don't mind me asking? Trying to move outta one of the "Tech hubs" in the US and move somewhere where the rents/lifestyle is more manageable :).

[logfromblammo]

Be prepared to let an exploding offer explode.

As a candidate, there's not much you can do about companies that won't interview additional candidates or extend offers until after the previous top pick refuses their offer. It ultimately comes down to whether the company is hiring the right person to fill a specific position, or whether they are hiring a good candidate and then finding the right position for them to fill. The former is willing to leave runners-up candidates in limbo while their top pick has an offer in hand. Doing that necessarily extends process time for other companies in the same market. And it can produce deadlocks.

On Monday, Candidate A interviews at Company X, and Candidate B interviews at Company Y. On Tuesday, B interviews at X, and A interviews at Y. On Friday, X extends an offer to A and tells B that they are still interested, and Y offers for B, and tells A they are still interested. But both A and B want to compare offers from X and Y. X and Y both want their outstanding offers to be accepted or rejected before making another one. The companies pressure the candidates to decide quickly. The candidates expect that the second offers will be coming in any day now, because the companies keep saying they are "working on it".

Now we have a game-theory problem. Companies play the odd rounds, Candidates play the even rounds. Company moves are "offer X", "reject", or "pass". Candidate moves are "offer X", "withdraw", "pass", and "rejected". When a company enters the game, their first play is all "reject", and for each subsequent round they play, they score -1. When a candidate enters the game, their first play must be all "withdraw" or "pass", and for each subsequent round they play, they score -1.

If a candidate plays a round with no "offer X" moves, they may leave the game, scoring 0. If a company plays a round with no "offer X" moves, they may leave the game, scoring 0. If a company plays a round with an "offer X" AND the candidate has one matching "offer X" and all other moves are "withdraw" or "rejected", the player may exit the game, the company scoring VALUE(COMPANY,CANDIDATE)-X and the candidate scoring X. If the company meets applicable exit criteria after all candidates exit, they may also exit with no penalty. The output of the VALUE() function is not known precisely to the company prior to scoring, but an approximate value somewhere within 0.618 and 1.618 of the actual scoring value is freely available during play.

So if the playfield is populated with companies that only have one "offer X" out at a time, with a lot of "pass" moves, how does one counter that as a candidate?

One that comes to mind is for the candidate to stay in the game when they could otherwise exit, exploiting that fact that companies only score when candidates exit. Accept the expiring offer, and simply don't start work for that company until after other potential offers come in. If a better offer comes in, change the previous one to "withdraw" and exit with a higher score.

As with other games that can be reduced to simple rules, this one can produce complex strategies which may involve alliances, deception, cartelization, and secret signaling. And repeated consecutive games may enable strategies that are not possible in single games.