My background is consulting and earlier-stage startups in the UK which may mean we’re in a different environment to what you’re used to, but the teams are often lean, and sometimes strained by the time we’re out to hire.
Sourcing and screening often starts a few weeks/months before but generally we move quite quickly through technical to offer stages - I think its healthy and fair for both parties to keep expect these final stages around 1-2 weeks.
Interviewing takes quite a bit of time and energy from the tech team and can impact team health, delivery, and ultimately bottom line - where our salaries come from.
If we’re in the fortunate position to have a final candidate (or two - three), theres going to be an exploding offer because we need to get back to work, and we need to let other candidates know to move on.
As a candidate its very fair to line up your interviews with a few companies and tell them you would like to make a decision by a particular date. If they cant accommodate you or extend an offer with a deadline prior to that, its on them. In my last job hunt no company turned down this request and two adjusted their processes to accommodate it.
It's interesting you mention UK and urgency in the same sentence. In my experience, nothing in the UK happens quickly when it comes to permanent employees (I guess contractors are different). Everyone has 2-3 months of notice period, plus people usually take a month off between switching jobs to relax. So there's usually 3-4 months between when everyone agrees and when they eventually join.
The only time things happen quickly is when someone is jobless, or if they already handed in their notice, they were going to join company X and you manage to snipe them in that 3-4 month period before they've started at company X.
> In my last job hunt no company turned down this request and two adjusted their processes to accommodate it.
It’s not that companies don’t want to hire fast (or don’t need to), I’ve worked at startups (in UK too), big tech and worked on hiring.
But if the rush is in their side and they want you, that’s different to an exploding offer in many ways, in that they aren’t trying to pressure you to move fast to improve their negotiating position and worsen yours, they’re the ones on the weaker position, and to get you to move fast for them, that gives you leverage.
You decide if you care about the offer and the company/role etc. and then ask them for a deal that’ll make you cancel your other interviews now in that case.
My background is consulting and earlier-stage startups in the UK which may mean we’re in a different environment to what you’re used to, but the teams are often lean, and sometimes strained by the time we’re out to hire.
Sourcing and screening often starts a few weeks/months before but generally we move quite quickly through technical to offer stages - I think its healthy and fair for both parties to keep expect these final stages around 1-2 weeks.
Interviewing takes quite a bit of time and energy from the tech team and can impact team health, delivery, and ultimately bottom line - where our salaries come from.
If we’re in the fortunate position to have a final candidate (or two - three), theres going to be an exploding offer because we need to get back to work, and we need to let other candidates know to move on.
As a candidate its very fair to line up your interviews with a few companies and tell them you would like to make a decision by a particular date. If they cant accommodate you or extend an offer with a deadline prior to that, its on them. In my last job hunt no company turned down this request and two adjusted their processes to accommodate it.