I don't like this practice at all, just to be clear, but let me play devil's advocate for a second:
Let's say that a company is trying to hire for "a senior level position", as you put it. Let's also take it as an assumption that senior level positions are relatively unique, carry responsibility within the company, and are not a homogeneous fungible engineering role. In other words, you can't hire two people for one senior level position and squeeze them both in somewhere.
The company doesn't just interview one candidate at a time, much as a candidate doesn't interview only one company. If there are two candidates in the pipeline and the company likes both of them, it would be unethical to give both candidates an offer at the same time (since the company can only hire one person, it would need to rescind the offer from one of those two people if they both accepted).
So, the company might tell the candidate they like most: "We really like you for this position. We'll give you 24 hours to decide, and hold the position until then. After that, since we can't hold up our recruiting pipeline indefinitely while you decide, the offer may expire." If you are a candidate, getting an offer a day or two later than you're expecting could seem like a big delay, after all.
I assume that this is not what you were told, or how it was messaged, but how would you feel about a situation like that? How would you want it to be messaged? If multiple people are competing for one position, you can only have one outstanding offer at a time, which means it needs to have a reasonable time expiration so that the next-best candidate gets a chance to consider it.
Alternatively, I suppose you could say, "We're giving both you and someone else an offer simultaneously. First person to accept gets it." But that seems equally bad (especially since the candidate has no way to know whether it's even true).
It seems like the higher level a position you're interviewing for, and the more unique, the shorter a time window the company can have to leave the offer open. When someone is given the offer to be the CEO of a large company, do they get more than a day to decide?
Granted, none of this reasoning should apply to typical engineering positions that people regularly encounter, for companies that want to hire as many people as they can, and I am not trying to excuse pointless exploding offers.
> It seems like the higher level a position you're interviewing for, and the more unique, the shorter a time window the company can have to leave the offer open. When someone is given the offer to be the CEO of a large company, do they get more than a day to decide?
My experience is exactly opposite: For low level candidates, candidates are often reasonably interchangeable, so losing a candidate by demanding quick decisions is ok - you just pick the next on your list. For really high level candidates, the search cost can reach five or even six digits, and can last for months, and negotiations can go on for weeks. (EDIT: for actually high level positions, it's not unusual for the candidate to have their lawyer review documents etc. prior to accepting an offer as well, so one day deadlines would often be impossible in practice even if there was nothing to negotiate)
There can be truly desperate situations where someone badly needs a position filled right away, but that's generally a warning sign that they're understaffed and/or have not ensured proper cross-training, and will be a nightmare to work for if they've not learned their lesson.
Tell them that they can send the contract. It's not binding either way.
If you already have the contract. Tell them back that you need a few days to check your notice period and paperwork. It's just not possible to move that fast. (How the hell did they even made up a contract and a background check before they get the information?)
The more you go up the chain. The more exclusive (i.e. no other people in the entire city for this position) and the longer the negotiation might be (you're hell not leaving your place at the snap of a finger from a 20 year old HR person who's bullshitting you).
P.S. EVERY ONE gets more than one day to decide. Don't expect people to be available on phone or email whenever you want.
>It seems like the higher level a position you're interviewing for, and the more unique, the shorter a time window the company can have to leave the offer open.
It really depends on each side's BATNA [1]. If you have stronger walk away power, it's foolish for the offer to come with short acceptance terms.
Your whole line of reasoning is predicated on the following huge flaw:
>If you are a candidate, getting an offer a day or two later than you're expecting could seem like a big delay, after all.
In your very unrealistic CEO hypothetical, do you suppose it would be a big delay for you if you were offered the "CEO" position a week from Thursday instead of Monday, since between Monday and Friday they were trying to recruit another person?
I mean just how fast do you think these companies move! Do you imagine these people are basically in the waiting room, interviewing the same day - "So are you interviewing for the CEO position too?" "Yep. Do you know anything about this company?" "Just what I read in the Journal" "Me too. Hey, they're calling me." "Good luck!"
Let's say that a company is trying to hire for "a senior level position", as you put it. Let's also take it as an assumption that senior level positions are relatively unique, carry responsibility within the company, and are not a homogeneous fungible engineering role. In other words, you can't hire two people for one senior level position and squeeze them both in somewhere.
The company doesn't just interview one candidate at a time, much as a candidate doesn't interview only one company. If there are two candidates in the pipeline and the company likes both of them, it would be unethical to give both candidates an offer at the same time (since the company can only hire one person, it would need to rescind the offer from one of those two people if they both accepted).
So, the company might tell the candidate they like most: "We really like you for this position. We'll give you 24 hours to decide, and hold the position until then. After that, since we can't hold up our recruiting pipeline indefinitely while you decide, the offer may expire." If you are a candidate, getting an offer a day or two later than you're expecting could seem like a big delay, after all.
I assume that this is not what you were told, or how it was messaged, but how would you feel about a situation like that? How would you want it to be messaged? If multiple people are competing for one position, you can only have one outstanding offer at a time, which means it needs to have a reasonable time expiration so that the next-best candidate gets a chance to consider it.
Alternatively, I suppose you could say, "We're giving both you and someone else an offer simultaneously. First person to accept gets it." But that seems equally bad (especially since the candidate has no way to know whether it's even true).
It seems like the higher level a position you're interviewing for, and the more unique, the shorter a time window the company can have to leave the offer open. When someone is given the offer to be the CEO of a large company, do they get more than a day to decide?
Granted, none of this reasoning should apply to typical engineering positions that people regularly encounter, for companies that want to hire as many people as they can, and I am not trying to excuse pointless exploding offers.