A lot of people are viewing this from the employer, which I guess makes a certain amount of sense, but as a potential employee that's not your problem.
The simple fact is that as an employee you should be looking out for yourself. Period. That means pushing back on a hard deadline that will exclude you from trying to get your dream (or simply preferred) job.
If the company won't budge and you're unsure of your prospects then yes by all means accept it, go to the other interview and, if you get it, bail on the other one.
For those that object to this on ethical grounds, consider this scenario: the company has their preferred employee who passes on the job and then they offer it to you. If that first guy comes back and changes his mind, will the company say "oh sorry, we've offered it to someone else". They might. Or they might not (and I've had it happen where they haven't).
If your "safety employer" is a large company don't even give it a second thought. Microsoft or Yahoo will offer hundreds of jobs. Not everyone is going to show. It's factored in and the companies won't die if you don't show up.
Be more careful when it comes to small companies but, as others have noted, smaller companies may be in a situation between getting 0 employees and getting 1. That's a big difference from getting 199 or 200.
Ultimately though, the company's problems aren't your problems, particularly if they exploit your inexperience and relative lack of negotiating power to force you into making a premature decision. That company will have interviewed other people. It will simply extend an offer to the next person on the list.
If they can't get someone to join them they're either not offering enough compensation or they're simply not desirable employers. Neither of which is your problem.
A lot of people are viewing this from the employer ...
I view this as simple ethics. You keep your word, period.
For those that object to this on ethical grounds, consider this scenario: the company has their preferred employee who passes on the job and then they offer it to you. If that first guy comes back and changes his mind, will the company say "oh sorry, we've offered it to someone else". They might. Or they might not (and I've had it happen where they haven't).
If a company rescinds their offer due to no fault of your own (e.g, misrepresentation), then it's just as unethical as you rescinding your acceptance of the offer.
If you're not sure, then simply do not accept the offer. They'll either wait (or they won't), but it's the only ethically sound decision available, and you will avoid the possibility of making a bad name for yourself.
I'd certainly remember someone that accepted an offer and then backed out without cause. Nobody responsible does this.
In general, one should be aware of the six principles of persuasion as outlined by Cialdini in Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion of which the "exploding" part is an example of "scarcity". These principles are just as relevant to buying a house or car as negotiating for a job.
For the record, the six principles are:
* reciprocity (hey, they flew you out there, right?)
* commitment and consistency (they get you to agree in principle to working for them before they make a concrete offer)
* social proof (look at the great people who already work here)
Campus recruiters count on student’s high ethical standards.
This goes far beyond campus recruiters. Most companies, at least here in the UK apply the same mentality to job offers.
The key factor is absolute honesty & transparency. As Joel alludes to in the article, be open and tell them you are considering all of your options before making a decision. If pushed, turn the tables and ask them if they would offer a job to the first person they interviewed even if they were a good fit for the role? How do they know the next person they meet won't be a better fit. Pressure tactics are common place and this is an excellent example of one of the first times you will be faced with it and it will benefit you down the line when you start working for them and they press you for project deadlines and so on.
How does something like this work - does Betabeat ask Joel for permission to repost his content under their name/banner/ads? Do they work out a cut of ad revenue? Or do they just copy-and-paste the content without permission, figuring most writers won't complain?
Offers with an acceptance deadline simplify life for the employer, so they do that. Refusing to accept the deadlines or reneging on acceptances simplifies life for the applicants, so they do that. Employers can respond by rescinding offers when someone better comes along, which applicants can counter by accepting and holding as many offers as possible. Employers then realize they must make multiple offers for each position with the intention of rescinding those made to applicants worse than the best one which accepted. Applicants likewise renege on every acceptance except the one from their most favored employer amongst the employers that extended them offers. The time scales on which this all happens compress until it is essentially one big chaotic race condition. When everyone is predictably acting in support of their own interests, the outcome is also somewhat predictable.
It's interesting to observe the tech intern labor market retrace the path that other candidate / organization matching processes, ranging from sorority rush to medical residency applications, have gone down. The amusing bit is that the apparent endgame, where both sides submit ranklists to a central clearinghouse that uses some form of the stable marriage algorithm, sounds like something a tech company came up with.
Several people are looking at this from the employer side and claiming that this should be acceptable because it's hard when you have one position to fill and someone has a lock on it for a long time.
While that is valid, especially for smaller companies, many companies definitely use this when that reasoning doesn't hold. I'm about to receive an offer for the summer from [very big company] that employs ~1000 interns in the location where I'd be. I would guess that the team I'll be on has several other intern slots. Despite that, and despite the fact that I wouldn't start my internship for 7 months, from what I hear they will definitely give me a short deadline to decide.
This is purely a matter of them trying to get me to commit while my visit to them is fresh in my mind and before I can apply and consider too broadly.
And while, from an ethical standpoint, you can make the claim that it's "hard" for employers and they "need" this, hiring people is also hard for employers. You can try to shift your burdens on to potential employees, but that's going to hurt you in the competition for talent. Any time that you are less employee-friendly than other companies, even with legitimate reason, you might lose out.
date people "in your league". you can try to get with someone out of your league, but they're (much) more likely to string you along until something better comes along, or cheat on you. if you can't get hot enough people to date you, maybe you should work on yourself, and your social proof.
There's no mention of the flip side of this. I only have one position, and I interview multiple candidates, several of which are good. If I make you an offer, I can't afford to sit around waiting for weeks for you to make up your mind: if you turn it down, chances are my other candidates are already gone, and now I have to start the whole process again from scratch.
Edit: fair enough, I missed that Joel was talking about the specific context of internships.
There's no flip side to this. Spolsky is writing about college recruitment, where the idea is to interview at a bunch of companies and then pick one many weeks later. You are talking about a totally different kind of hiring, where exploding offers aren't (as much of) a problem.
In the context of student interns, you're in the wrong place to fill that position. Either that one position is important enough for hiring a Real Professional, or you'll survive not having an intern for a few more months.
Having a single position that's critical to your company but attempting to fill it with an intern is disingenuous and perhaps even unethical (you're underpaying the intern based on the position's value to the company; you're not giving your shareholders actual value by hiring someone inexperienced; etc.)
Then make sure you all do the interviews reasonably close to each other.
Seriously I made so many mistakes getting my first job that the next time I am going to assume every company is out to rape me, at least financially, properly emotionally.
Fair point, but this article is aimed at students looking for full-time jobs or co-ops, most of which become available at roughly the same time, many months from January.
“Well,” you tell them, “I have another interview coming up in January. So I’ll let you know right after that.”
“Oh,” they say. “That might be a problem. We really have to know by December 31st. Can you let us know by December 31st?”
What you could do is answer the "When can you let us know?" question with another question "Well, when do you need to know?". Dec 31st might sound like they have some sensible end of year thing, but I predict scummy companies/recruiters will pick a date just before you said you had another interview. Try to see what they say first.
I would seriously disagree with verbally accepting an offer and then reneging. It's unprofessional and although unlikely when you're just coming out college, it can follow you through your career.
I've been in this situation before and what's worked for me is to play the same game they do. If they tell you that they need an answer by a certain date, you tell them you're very interested in their offer, but you have already setup other interviews that you want to see through, because it's the right thing to do. Leave it at that.
Don't try and get the date changed, just be non-committal, and tell them you'll do your best. Job offers are very rarely yanked because you didn't met the first deadline for an offer.
When they call you 2 days before the deadline and ask if you have an answer, tell them you need "X" amount of time and then you'll give them a decision. Don't say "Can I have two more weeks", say "If you can wait until Jan 15th, I will give you an answer then". Recruiters have been jerked around before and if you provide your own deadline (and hold yourself to it) they'll often go along with it.
This seems a little short-sighted to me. It's noted that the company doesn't make the offer until they've had the candidate go through on-site interviews. It's not like they are making an offer on initial meeting. If both parties are interested, this should be acceptable.
Look at it from another perspective. The hiring manager has an open position to fill. They want to fill it with someone who wants to work with them. They can't leave a job offer on the table for a long period of time, just to have the candidate say no. Having that offer outstanding prevents them from making an offer to other potentially qualified (and more eager) candidates. An interested candidate should have no problem with a decision at this point in the interview process.
If the job offer is pulled because it is expired, and the candidate is really interested in the job, they should be able to get another offer if the position hasn't been filled by the time they got off the fence.
I graduated right before the peak of the 2000 dotcom bust, and I got a two exploding offers that I didn't accept. The offer I ended up taking was the opposite of an exploding offer: the nebulous offer.
I was told I was being tendered an offer. Great! I was ecstatic because the company was a "leader" in the industry I wanted to work in. Ten days and several phone calls later, my offer was still being "worked on." At that point I got impatient and continued interviewing. I had two more offers come in during the formation of the nebulous offer: one of the exploding type and one without conditions. I informed my dream company of the exploding offer and magically the paperwork appeared for their offer the next day. I took it.
6 months later I got laid off along with 20% of the staff.
Lesson learned: a company that treats you poorly when you're in recruitment will treat you poorly when you're working for them.
I'm surprised this is coming from Spolsky. Spolsky's companies must be getting big.
Small companies can often only hire one person at a time and therefore need short acceptance windows. Small companies (< 50 people) often have only one specific position open. It is unethical to make more than one offer if you hiring for a single position. Therefore small companies often need short acceptance windows so they can make an offer to someone else who might want the position and fill the job.
2. We're "small" by any reasonable definition and have structured ourselves so that we don't need to make expiring offers. It can be done.
3. Spolsky is talking about a very specific kind of hiring that bigger companies do, where the schedule is explicitly "interview in Q3-Q4, choose in Q4-Q1, start in Q2-3". It's this environment where exploding offers make sense.
Is it odd that the most surprising thing about this article, for me, was that people start looking for summer jobs in November?
Also, why aren't people accepting every offer they get, then at the start of summer[1] send an email about changing their minds to everyone who isn't the best offer? Or even play offers against each other?
> Thanksgiving marks the start of tech’s most intense hiring season, as promising computer science students start looking for summer jobs and internships.
I'm a student. Legitimate question, is this true? Should I be starting to get my act together for summer internships?
Yes. Google starts around this time, and Facebook starts even earlier. When I was in my Junior year I interviewed and got my offer from Facebook when it was still September. In contrast, Google didn't get back to me until November or so.
If you want them to hurry it up, you just need to mention your existing offers. In my Senior year, I was able to get Google to complete the entire interview-interview-offer process within a week and half, before the first week of October, because I had a Facebook deadline.
So the best bet is to interview early so you can use that as a negotiating stick for getting other companies.
At my co-op job (just graduated in May) we hired for summer starting in spring semester. If you start prepping now you can start applying day 1. Companies who know the internship schedule will post at the beginning because they want the most time to screen applications, even if that means doing 2-3 interview days on campus. The other upside is that you're not crunched for interview schedules. It's not unheard of for Google to get back to you a few weeks after you applied, or even after you past round 1.
If you start applying in spring, you also have the option of starting in fall if that's your initiative. This would probably fall more in the co-op category than internship. This lets companies overlap you with another graduating co-op. If their schedule is summer, spring, fall, you could want fall to overlap. Or if they do 4 terms it's summer, spring, fall, summer.
From experience, our interview pool sucked in beginning of fall, so don't apply for spring term if you can help it. We would interview in fall for the upcoming summer sometimes, but most of the time we were trying to hire to replace the students who stayed 5 or 6 terms. We found that it was mostly (though not entirely) rejects from spring hiring that couldn't find a job in summer and didn't go to school over that past summer. As a result of this happening for several years in a row, we stopped having on campus interviews in Fall, though if you applied to us directly we would interview you.
Yes, particularly in December. Better to get started before companies have had to make decisions on many other applicants already, and this is about when some companies will start considering them in my experience. Other companies will start later so you're not screwed if you don start now, but you will be passing up some opportunities probably.
It was true for me when I was in that spot. For the internship I had after my junior year, my on-site interview was the reason I skipped out on class and came home a day early for Thanksgiving break, and I was on the phone with them several weeks prior. IIRC, I think I got the actual acceptance in mid-January.
> Trust me on this one: there’s not a single hiring manager in the world who wants to hire you but would get mad just because you’re considering other offers.
Although Joel Spolsky certainly knows more than me, I'll ask anyway: Is that really true? Perhaps it is, but I would guess that this is a pretty big overstatement.
However, I think it can safely be said (and this is maybe not obvious to many prospective interns) that if the hiring manager does get mad, then that's a big red flag, and if you got rejected for this reason then you dodged a bullet.
There ought to be a database of companies that give offers with very short expirations. Not necessarily condemning the practice, but it would be good to know. Yelp, for example, routinely gives offers with a 5-day acceptance window.
Does this ever work on anyone? I got an offer from Google that "expires in 5 days". I said, "I'm not going to decide that quickly, so I'll just re-apply when I'm sure I want to work there." Suddenly, the deadline was gone.
One thing to keep in mind also is that pushing back against this negotiation tactic is good, but sometimes people do just have to move fast. I had five interviews two Fridays ago, and I offered the second candidate the job - starting on Monday, 20% higher pay than she asked for in her resume, and interesting roles. But I had to know right away, because I had to know what to do with the next set of candidates.
Also worth noting is that she didn't have a job currently - her previous company pulled out of China, so there was no risk to her of joining. I was more careful when I recruited a woman who was working at the U.S. Embassy, which was a fantastic stable position with solid pay - I asked her to start here part time for a week or two to make sure there was a fit before quitting a very good job.
Anyways, point is, people want decisions fast for many reasons. Look to see if it's in your best interest to decide fast, and decide fast if so. If it's not, push back. Not all fast paces are petty bargaining moves though.
I think the real answer to this is as simple as disclosure. If you accept the "exploding offer", you should be explicit and clear that you are still considering other positions, and your acceptance is tentative. The company is fully informed of the possibility that you may leave in the near future and it is then their choice if they decide to continue with you or not.
If you don't want to provide that level of disclosure, you should inform the recruiter that you won't have a decision by x date, only by y date, and they'll have to live with that. They may continue to pursue or they may forgo your candidacy, but either way you were honest. There are plenty of gigs out there that you can get legitimately, even if a would-be ill-gotten gig is presented first. You shouldn't give in.
I don't think it's acceptable to accept an offer with the intent to leave in short order without providing disclosure of that possibility. Justifications like "Microsoft will survive" don't make your actions any more correct or honorable and should not be used. Man up and be honest with your potential employers.
This article seems very specific to cattle-call hiring of summer interns. The work doesn't begin for several months after the offer is made and this is a somewhat unique situation to students and internships at large companies.
When an offer is made for full-time, permanent employment a response is normally expected pretty quickly - within a few days. The interview process may take weeks or months but once the offer is made, it's expected that all parties are fairly serious and you are ready to turn in your 2-weeks notice if you are already employed, or possibly start right away if not.
The rules may be different for these two situations. In the latter, I definitely would not suggest accepting an offer and then backing out as a strategy. If you do, at least be aware that you may be burning bridges along the way.
[+] [-] cletus|14 years ago|reply
The simple fact is that as an employee you should be looking out for yourself. Period. That means pushing back on a hard deadline that will exclude you from trying to get your dream (or simply preferred) job.
If the company won't budge and you're unsure of your prospects then yes by all means accept it, go to the other interview and, if you get it, bail on the other one.
For those that object to this on ethical grounds, consider this scenario: the company has their preferred employee who passes on the job and then they offer it to you. If that first guy comes back and changes his mind, will the company say "oh sorry, we've offered it to someone else". They might. Or they might not (and I've had it happen where they haven't).
If your "safety employer" is a large company don't even give it a second thought. Microsoft or Yahoo will offer hundreds of jobs. Not everyone is going to show. It's factored in and the companies won't die if you don't show up.
Be more careful when it comes to small companies but, as others have noted, smaller companies may be in a situation between getting 0 employees and getting 1. That's a big difference from getting 199 or 200.
Ultimately though, the company's problems aren't your problems, particularly if they exploit your inexperience and relative lack of negotiating power to force you into making a premature decision. That company will have interviewed other people. It will simply extend an offer to the next person on the list.
If they can't get someone to join them they're either not offering enough compensation or they're simply not desirable employers. Neither of which is your problem.
[+] [-] nupark2|14 years ago|reply
I view this as simple ethics. You keep your word, period.
For those that object to this on ethical grounds, consider this scenario: the company has their preferred employee who passes on the job and then they offer it to you. If that first guy comes back and changes his mind, will the company say "oh sorry, we've offered it to someone else". They might. Or they might not (and I've had it happen where they haven't).
If a company rescinds their offer due to no fault of your own (e.g, misrepresentation), then it's just as unethical as you rescinding your acceptance of the offer.
If you're not sure, then simply do not accept the offer. They'll either wait (or they won't), but it's the only ethically sound decision available, and you will avoid the possibility of making a bad name for yourself.
I'd certainly remember someone that accepted an offer and then backed out without cause. Nobody responsible does this.
[+] [-] podperson|14 years ago|reply
For the record, the six principles are:
* reciprocity (hey, they flew you out there, right?)
* commitment and consistency (they get you to agree in principle to working for them before they make a concrete offer)
* social proof (look at the great people who already work here)
* authority
* liking
* scarcity (this offer is strictly limited)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini#6_key_principle...
[+] [-] Peroni|14 years ago|reply
This goes far beyond campus recruiters. Most companies, at least here in the UK apply the same mentality to job offers.
The key factor is absolute honesty & transparency. As Joel alludes to in the article, be open and tell them you are considering all of your options before making a decision. If pushed, turn the tables and ask them if they would offer a job to the first person they interviewed even if they were a good fit for the role? How do they know the next person they meet won't be a better fit. Pressure tactics are common place and this is an excellent example of one of the first times you will be faced with it and it will benefit you down the line when you start working for them and they press you for project deadlines and so on.
[+] [-] brown9-2|14 years ago|reply
How does something like this work - does Betabeat ask Joel for permission to repost his content under their name/banner/ads? Do they work out a cut of ad revenue? Or do they just copy-and-paste the content without permission, figuring most writers won't complain?
[+] [-] spolsky|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewflnr|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thedufer|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spolsky|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] the_one_smiley|14 years ago|reply
Offers with an acceptance deadline simplify life for the employer, so they do that. Refusing to accept the deadlines or reneging on acceptances simplifies life for the applicants, so they do that. Employers can respond by rescinding offers when someone better comes along, which applicants can counter by accepting and holding as many offers as possible. Employers then realize they must make multiple offers for each position with the intention of rescinding those made to applicants worse than the best one which accepted. Applicants likewise renege on every acceptance except the one from their most favored employer amongst the employers that extended them offers. The time scales on which this all happens compress until it is essentially one big chaotic race condition. When everyone is predictably acting in support of their own interests, the outcome is also somewhat predictable.
It's interesting to observe the tech intern labor market retrace the path that other candidate / organization matching processes, ranging from sorority rush to medical residency applications, have gone down. The amusing bit is that the apparent endgame, where both sides submit ranklists to a central clearinghouse that uses some form of the stable marriage algorithm, sounds like something a tech company came up with.
[+] [-] jackowayed|14 years ago|reply
While that is valid, especially for smaller companies, many companies definitely use this when that reasoning doesn't hold. I'm about to receive an offer for the summer from [very big company] that employs ~1000 interns in the location where I'd be. I would guess that the team I'll be on has several other intern slots. Despite that, and despite the fact that I wouldn't start my internship for 7 months, from what I hear they will definitely give me a short deadline to decide.
This is purely a matter of them trying to get me to commit while my visit to them is fresh in my mind and before I can apply and consider too broadly.
And while, from an ethical standpoint, you can make the claim that it's "hard" for employers and they "need" this, hiring people is also hard for employers. You can try to shift your burdens on to potential employees, but that's going to hurt you in the competition for talent. Any time that you are less employee-friendly than other companies, even with legitimate reason, you might lose out.
[+] [-] dustingetz|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alex_c|14 years ago|reply
Edit: fair enough, I missed that Joel was talking about the specific context of internships.
[+] [-] tptacek|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cperciva|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] delinka|14 years ago|reply
Having a single position that's critical to your company but attempting to fill it with an intern is disingenuous and perhaps even unethical (you're underpaying the intern based on the position's value to the company; you're not giving your shareholders actual value by hiring someone inexperienced; etc.)
[+] [-] tomjen3|14 years ago|reply
Seriously I made so many mistakes getting my first job that the next time I am going to assume every company is out to rape me, at least financially, properly emotionally.
[+] [-] jarek|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rmc|14 years ago|reply
“Well,” you tell them, “I have another interview coming up in January. So I’ll let you know right after that.”
“Oh,” they say. “That might be a problem. We really have to know by December 31st. Can you let us know by December 31st?”
What you could do is answer the "When can you let us know?" question with another question "Well, when do you need to know?". Dec 31st might sound like they have some sensible end of year thing, but I predict scummy companies/recruiters will pick a date just before you said you had another interview. Try to see what they say first.
[+] [-] dedward|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] refurb|14 years ago|reply
I've been in this situation before and what's worked for me is to play the same game they do. If they tell you that they need an answer by a certain date, you tell them you're very interested in their offer, but you have already setup other interviews that you want to see through, because it's the right thing to do. Leave it at that.
Don't try and get the date changed, just be non-committal, and tell them you'll do your best. Job offers are very rarely yanked because you didn't met the first deadline for an offer.
When they call you 2 days before the deadline and ask if you have an answer, tell them you need "X" amount of time and then you'll give them a decision. Don't say "Can I have two more weeks", say "If you can wait until Jan 15th, I will give you an answer then". Recruiters have been jerked around before and if you provide your own deadline (and hold yourself to it) they'll often go along with it.
RF
[+] [-] codeslush|14 years ago|reply
Look at it from another perspective. The hiring manager has an open position to fill. They want to fill it with someone who wants to work with them. They can't leave a job offer on the table for a long period of time, just to have the candidate say no. Having that offer outstanding prevents them from making an offer to other potentially qualified (and more eager) candidates. An interested candidate should have no problem with a decision at this point in the interview process.
If the job offer is pulled because it is expired, and the candidate is really interested in the job, they should be able to get another offer if the position hasn't been filled by the time they got off the fence.
[+] [-] kd1221|14 years ago|reply
I was told I was being tendered an offer. Great! I was ecstatic because the company was a "leader" in the industry I wanted to work in. Ten days and several phone calls later, my offer was still being "worked on." At that point I got impatient and continued interviewing. I had two more offers come in during the formation of the nebulous offer: one of the exploding type and one without conditions. I informed my dream company of the exploding offer and magically the paperwork appeared for their offer the next day. I took it.
6 months later I got laid off along with 20% of the staff.
Lesson learned: a company that treats you poorly when you're in recruitment will treat you poorly when you're working for them.
[+] [-] simulate|14 years ago|reply
Small companies can often only hire one person at a time and therefore need short acceptance windows. Small companies (< 50 people) often have only one specific position open. It is unethical to make more than one offer if you hiring for a single position. Therefore small companies often need short acceptance windows so they can make an offer to someone else who might want the position and fill the job.
[+] [-] tptacek|14 years ago|reply
2. We're "small" by any reasonable definition and have structured ourselves so that we don't need to make expiring offers. It can be done.
3. Spolsky is talking about a very specific kind of hiring that bigger companies do, where the schedule is explicitly "interview in Q3-Q4, choose in Q4-Q1, start in Q2-3". It's this environment where exploding offers make sense.
[+] [-] Swizec|14 years ago|reply
Also, why aren't people accepting every offer they get, then at the start of summer[1] send an email about changing their minds to everyone who isn't the best offer? Or even play offers against each other?
[1] or rather a reasonable amount of time sooner
[+] [-] DavidChouinard|14 years ago|reply
I'm a student. Legitimate question, is this true? Should I be starting to get my act together for summer internships?
[+] [-] orijing|14 years ago|reply
If you want them to hurry it up, you just need to mention your existing offers. In my Senior year, I was able to get Google to complete the entire interview-interview-offer process within a week and half, before the first week of October, because I had a Facebook deadline.
So the best bet is to interview early so you can use that as a negotiating stick for getting other companies.
[+] [-] caw|14 years ago|reply
At my co-op job (just graduated in May) we hired for summer starting in spring semester. If you start prepping now you can start applying day 1. Companies who know the internship schedule will post at the beginning because they want the most time to screen applications, even if that means doing 2-3 interview days on campus. The other upside is that you're not crunched for interview schedules. It's not unheard of for Google to get back to you a few weeks after you applied, or even after you past round 1.
If you start applying in spring, you also have the option of starting in fall if that's your initiative. This would probably fall more in the co-op category than internship. This lets companies overlap you with another graduating co-op. If their schedule is summer, spring, fall, you could want fall to overlap. Or if they do 4 terms it's summer, spring, fall, summer.
From experience, our interview pool sucked in beginning of fall, so don't apply for spring term if you can help it. We would interview in fall for the upcoming summer sometimes, but most of the time we were trying to hire to replace the students who stayed 5 or 6 terms. We found that it was mostly (though not entirely) rejects from spring hiring that couldn't find a job in summer and didn't go to school over that past summer. As a result of this happening for several years in a row, we stopped having on campus interviews in Fall, though if you applied to us directly we would interview you.
[+] [-] wahnfrieden|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] briancurtin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saryant|14 years ago|reply
It’s fun for us, the students. It’s nice to be wanted. :)
(Even nicer when they take you to Fogo de Chao to show they want you)
[+] [-] nobody314159265|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] impendia|14 years ago|reply
Although Joel Spolsky certainly knows more than me, I'll ask anyway: Is that really true? Perhaps it is, but I would guess that this is a pretty big overstatement.
However, I think it can safely be said (and this is maybe not obvious to many prospective interns) that if the hiring manager does get mad, then that's a big red flag, and if you got rejected for this reason then you dodged a bullet.
[+] [-] thurn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lionhearted|14 years ago|reply
One thing to keep in mind also is that pushing back against this negotiation tactic is good, but sometimes people do just have to move fast. I had five interviews two Fridays ago, and I offered the second candidate the job - starting on Monday, 20% higher pay than she asked for in her resume, and interesting roles. But I had to know right away, because I had to know what to do with the next set of candidates.
Also worth noting is that she didn't have a job currently - her previous company pulled out of China, so there was no risk to her of joining. I was more careful when I recruited a woman who was working at the U.S. Embassy, which was a fantastic stable position with solid pay - I asked her to start here part time for a week or two to make sure there was a fit before quitting a very good job.
Anyways, point is, people want decisions fast for many reasons. Look to see if it's in your best interest to decide fast, and decide fast if so. If it's not, push back. Not all fast paces are petty bargaining moves though.
[+] [-] cookiecaper|14 years ago|reply
If you don't want to provide that level of disclosure, you should inform the recruiter that you won't have a decision by x date, only by y date, and they'll have to live with that. They may continue to pursue or they may forgo your candidacy, but either way you were honest. There are plenty of gigs out there that you can get legitimately, even if a would-be ill-gotten gig is presented first. You shouldn't give in.
I don't think it's acceptable to accept an offer with the intent to leave in short order without providing disclosure of that possibility. Justifications like "Microsoft will survive" don't make your actions any more correct or honorable and should not be used. Man up and be honest with your potential employers.
[+] [-] jakejake|14 years ago|reply
When an offer is made for full-time, permanent employment a response is normally expected pretty quickly - within a few days. The interview process may take weeks or months but once the offer is made, it's expected that all parties are fairly serious and you are ready to turn in your 2-weeks notice if you are already employed, or possibly start right away if not.
The rules may be different for these two situations. In the latter, I definitely would not suggest accepting an offer and then backing out as a strategy. If you do, at least be aware that you may be burning bridges along the way.