[dan-robertson]

I think I sympathise with companies hiring for a single position. It’s hard to organise timing with several candidates and recruiting is expensive. If they’re a large company, I see it as a signal that they believe the candidate has a good chance of finding a better offer elsewhere given time.

I think from the candidate’s point of view, I don’t think the question is whether an offer is acceptable so much as whether it is the best offer in their search. Just as a company might like to interview several companies looking for a good fit and make an offer to the best even when others are acceptable, a candidate might want to receive several offers and accept the best even if others are acceptable.

I think a company would be fooling itself if it told stories about selecting for passion or something. If you’re not seeing any competing offers in your hires, you should ask why they aren’t competitive? Maybe your offers are very good or so bad as to not be worth trying to negotiate. Or maybe you’re selecting for the most desperate candidates. Or maybe you’re good at finding hires who perform poorly under whatever interview conditions are most fashionable.