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Comment by ryan_lane | Hacker News Reader

If a company gives you an exploding offer, it's a strong signal that the culture of that company isn't good, or that they can't afford to hire quality candidates (or both). In companies like this you can assume you'll probably also get poor raises.

In practice, if you get an exploding offer, unless you already think it's an extraordinary offer and love the potential opportunity, you can tell them that you won't be able to make a decision within that time. If the company is worth working for, they'll remove it. If they won't remove it, it's probably best not to take the offer.

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>>If a company gives you an exploding offer, it's a strong signal that the culture of that company isn't good, or that they can't afford to hire quality candidates (or both).

I work in games - what happens for us quite often is that we'll interview ~10 candidates and 2-3 are actually good enough to hire. So the process is to give the top candidate the offer with a few days to accept it, if they don't then we move on to the next candidate because they also want to know whether we are proceeding or not - otherwise it's just rude(to the candidate). How does that indicate poor culture?

> I work in games

That's your indication. There are a lot of people who want to work in games, but that doesn't mean it's a good culture.

I don't understand. OP suggested that giving people "explosive" offers is an indication of poor culture - I point out that the necessity to make a decision quickly is dictated by respect to candidates since we don't want to make people wait any longer than necessary. So again, how is this an indication of poor culture?

If you really believe you have a good culture, and attract the best talent, you should be able to offer your best candidate the position and wait for them to decline or accept. Other candidates may move on if you tell them you've extended an offer and are waiting to hear back, but forcing someones hand is a poor culture indicator, and being in a rush to hire in the majority of the cases indicates lack of planning.

> I work in games

Are there any gaming companies not known to have a poor culture? That industry is well known to be exploitative, with low pay.

>>Are there any gaming companies not known to have a poor culture?

Of course. Where I work the culture is very good, with strong emphasis against overtime, no crunch and very good benefits, and it's one of the biggest publishers in the industry.

This is highly dependent on the role. I have been tasked with growing teams where my mandate is to hire X number of engineers at various levels. If I found X hires and then hire X + 1 shows up and was a great fit, the company would make an exception. No exploding offers necessary.

On the other hand, sometimes you are hiring to fill a specific position rather than to generally grow a team. You have two candidates you like and you can't afford to let candidate 1 sit on the offer for three weeks. People treat it like it's nefarious on the part of the company to ever have an exploding offer, but sometimes it's just not practical.

It may not be nefarious, but it's antagonistic to the candidate getting the exploding offer. If you're hiring for a particular role and the candidate is dragging their feet on the offer, you've likely not made a strong enough offer. Making the offer exploding limits their ability to negotiate.

If you've made an offer to one candidate, and you're holding your response on another, you're already doing a disservice to that other candidate. They should know that you've extended an offer to someone else, and that you'll contact them if that offer falls through.

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