Do you have any thoughts about how to juggle timing when different opportunities will arise at different times? For example, if applying for jobs & university places at the same time, the response times will be very different.
The obvious strategy is to delay the decision as long as possible, but it’s hard to know how to trade off confirmed options that will expire against potential options you haven’t heard from yet.
One EA friend I talked to about this said he tried to do this, then found that when it came down to it he couldn’t bear to let an opportunity slide while waiting for others, so just took the first thing he got.
I haven’t had this problem in the past, probably because software companies are frequently so desperate for engineers that once they offer you a job they’re OK being strung along for quite a while. Plus I’ve never applied for things as disparate as graduate programs and non-academic jobs at the same time. So my experience is limited!
However, I do think that careful negotiation can help with this problem for high-skill non-software fields as well. If a company thinks you’re good enough to hire, they probably think you’re good enough to wait a little while for (unless they’re REALLY strapped for time). An exploding offer is often just them using Dark Arts to try to get people to accept before they can get better options, like what happened to your friend.
Between that, timing your job applications correctly, and investigating opportunities you haven’t officially been offered yet to see whether you really want them, it’s hopefully possible to smooth out many of the synchronization issues.
Do you have any thoughts about how to juggle timing when different opportunities will arise at different times? For example, if applying for jobs & university places at the same time, the response times will be very different.
The obvious strategy is to delay the decision as long as possible, but it’s hard to know how to trade off confirmed options that will expire against potential options you haven’t heard from yet.
One EA friend I talked to about this said he tried to do this, then found that when it came down to it he couldn’t bear to let an opportunity slide while waiting for others, so just took the first thing he got.
I haven’t had this problem in the past, probably because software companies are frequently so desperate for engineers that once they offer you a job they’re OK being strung along for quite a while. Plus I’ve never applied for things as disparate as graduate programs and non-academic jobs at the same time. So my experience is limited!
However, I do think that careful negotiation can help with this problem for high-skill non-software fields as well. If a company thinks you’re good enough to hire, they probably think you’re good enough to wait a little while for (unless they’re REALLY strapped for time). An exploding offer is often just them using Dark Arts to try to get people to accept before they can get better options, like what happened to your friend.
Between that, timing your job applications correctly, and investigating opportunities you haven’t officially been offered yet to see whether you really want them, it’s hopefully possible to smooth out many of the synchronization issues.