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Official Pit Job Search/Employment Thread

Alright peeps, got offer one in the bag. Final interview with another company next week. Should I bring up the fact that I already have an offer? Working under the assumption I get a second offer, what's the play to maximize my leverage? (Good) stressful times in the bmoney house.
 
The definition of first world problem.

Congrats though!
 
bmoneydeac said:
Alright peeps, got offer one in the bag. Final interview with another company next week. Should I bring up the fact that I already have an offer? Working under the assumption I get a second offer, what's the play to maximize my leverage? (Good) stressful times in the bmoney house.
Click to expand...
First off, congrats, bmoney! Second, go read this (https://medium.freecodecamp.com/ten-rules-for-negotiating-a-job-offer-ee17cccbdab6#.bovnnrdzr) and this (https://medium.freecodecamp.com/how-not-to-bomb-your-offer-negotiation-c46bb9bc7dea#.qdhp9icua). I feel confident in saying this is the best advice on the internet for this situation.

As for should you tell Company B about the offer from Company A? Yes, but make sure you do it correctly. Below is an excerpt on this topic from one of the links above.

Why companies care about other offers
When I wrote about the story of my own job search, I mentioned how having an offer from Google made companies turn around and expedite me through their funnels. Many commentators lamented at the capriciousness of these companies. If Uber or Twitch only talked to me because of Google and until then weren’t willing to look at me, what did that say about their hiring processes? What legitimately are they evaluating, if anything at all?

I think this response is totally backwards. The behavior of tech companies here is actually very rational, and you would do well to understand it.

First, you must realize what a company’s goal is. A company’s goal is to hire someone who will become an effective employee and produce more value than their cost. How do you figure out who will do that? Well, you can’t know for certain without actually hiring them, but there are a few proxies. Pedigree is the strongest signal; if they did it at other companies, they can probably do it at yours. And if someone trusted within the organization can vouch for them, that’s often a strong signal as well.

But turns out, almost everything else is a weak signal. Weak in the sense that it’s just not very reliable. Interviews, if you think about it, are long, sweaty, uncomfortable affairs that only glancingly resemble actual employment. They’re weird and can’t tell you that much about whether an individual will be good at their job. There’s no way around this. There are a few stronger signals, like bringing someone in for a week or two on a contract-to-hire position, but strong candidates won’t consider this. So candidates as a whole have effectively forced companies to assume almost all of the risk in hiring.

The truth is, knowing that someone has passed your interview just doesn’t say that much about whether they’ll be a good employee. It’s as though you knew nothing about a student other than their SAT score. It’s just not a lot of data to go off.

Nobody has solved this problem.

Not Google nor anyone else. And this is precisely why it’s rational for companies to care that you’ve received other offers. They care because each company knows that their own process is noisy, and the processes of most other companies are also noisy. But a candidate having multiple offers means that they have multiple weak signals in their favor. Combined, these converge into a much stronger signal than any single interview. It’s like knowing that a student has a strong SAT score, and GPA, and won various scholarships. Sure, it’s still possible that they’re a dunce, but it’s much harder for that to be true.

This is not to say that companies respond proportionally to these signals, or that they don’t overvalue credentials and brands. They do. But caring about whether you have other offers and valuing you accordingly is completely rational.

So this is all to say — tell other companies that you’ve received offers. Give them more signal so that they know you’re a valued and compelling candidate. And understand why this changes their mind about whether to interview you.

As you continue interviewing, remember to keep practicing your interview skills. The single strongest determinant of your final offer will be the number and strength of offers that you receive.
 
Congrats bmoney! Nonny has good advice on multiple offers with different companies. I've never successfully leveraged a second offer to get a better offer. Instead I pick a favorite offer and maintain positive relationships with the losing offer. I don't have experience leveraging competing companies, I only have experience with competing departments in the same company. It's a little trickier to be aggressive in those scenarios since the competing hiring managers talk.
 
Chupe
&Steph
&Dray
&Klay
&KD
&Phan
&Lacob

&Rubbins' friend who lives in the cabin in the rich person's backyard for 400 bucks a month.
 
It was 500 in sweet sweet Burlingame. He moved now chupe I bet we could hook you up!! Silicon Bungalow!!
 
Oooof that's an hour commute never mind. My buddy's friend was a coach for the cal football team and just got fired when the head coach fella got fired. He has some sweet university comped pad. Walking/biking distance. Let's work on that! Golden Bungalow! (Get it? They are the golden bears! For the interview.)
 
Ugh...was given notice today that my position was being eliminated. Nice severance, and will be the first call when new business comes in....but I hate job searching/unemployment.
 
What's the longest I can wait before confirming the interview? I just got the email yesterday late afternoon EST. I'll probably reply today at some point. The times they are offering are weird: either the 15th or 16th, then a jump to the 22nd. Not sure if there is a benefit to getting it done early, or being the last one with that big gap.
 
If you do well, I'm guessing the next step would be an on-campus interview? Take an early slot. They might be doing rolling interviews, so if you knock their socks off you might be invited to campus quickly even though they haven't 'finished' (you never finish until the job is closed) their phone interviews.
 
I've interviewed before with Cal, and it was just a phone interview which they said would be the only interview in the process. I think that's par for the course for these type jobs -- I interviewed at Colorado via Skype and there wasn't going to be an in-person then either, they just made the decision. They don't want to invest too much time in getting these types of positions filled. So I'd be pretty surprised if there was an in-person at all.
 
There is a company I'd like to work for, and I've applied to two jobs in the same department with no interest yet. Once last April and once just in mid-January. Another job has been posted for that department and again I am qualified and interested. Would it look bad to apply again so quickly? Should I reference it in the cover letter (something about my continued interest in joining the team) or not? Thoughts?
 
RollTheQuad06 said:
There is a company I'd like to work for, and I've applied to two jobs in the same department with no interest yet. Once last April and once just in mid-January. Another job has been posted for that department and again I am qualified and interested. Would it look bad to apply again so quickly? Should I reference it in the cover letter (something about my continued interest in joining the team) or not? Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Go ahead and apply for the position, but know that applying through the portal is the least likely / least effective way for your application to get any traction. You need to invest your time in networking your way into the company. If you don't know anybody at the company, check your network to see if you know anyone who can introduce you to someone at the company. Internal referrals are much, much, much more likely to have their application reviewed than someone applying through the website without any apparent connection to the company. "The 2-Hour Job Search" by Steve Dalton outlines some effective ways to do this.
 
leftcoastdeac said:
Go ahead and apply for the position, but know that applying through the portal is the least likely / least effective way for your application to get any traction. You need to invest your time in networking your way into the company. If you don't know anybody at the company, check your network to see if you know anyone who can introduce you to someone at the company. Internal referrals are much, much, much more likely to have their application reviewed than someone applying through the website without any apparent connection to the company. "The 2-Hour Job Search" by Steve Dalton outlines some effective ways to do this.
Click to expand...

A good friend of mine is in grad school with a person who works in HR at the company (not recruiting or hiring though, in the benefits side). My friend recommended me to HR person for the position a couple weeks ago, and I learned that the job was basically already going to an internal candidate but they had to post it. I'll reach out to my friend again. Maybe I can get directly linked to the HR person instead of second-hand. I also have a couple friends who work there, but in very different departments. I went through one of them last year for the other position, and she knew someone in that department and connected us, but that person was not in a hiring or recommending role. Guess I need to keep digging.
 
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