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Comment by seibelj | Hacker News Reader

You can always sign an offer letter, and reneg later if a better offer comes along. I've done that before. The recruiter even had the balls to say, "You know, you signed a contract, it's a legal document." And I replied, "Massachusetts is an at-will state, just imagine me starting at 9:00am on the start date, and quitting at 9:01am." No one can force you to do anything, this isn't North Korea.

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You can't build a career on that behavior. Especially if you stick around a place for a decade or so, you'd be surprised whom you run into and whose help you might need down the road. Unless you're leaving town and the industry for good, don't burn bridges.

Hell yeah you can. I'm the first to recognize that tech (and especially tech in Seattle) is a small town. But, really, who is going to remember the one person who quit on their first day because of a bullshit exploding offer? The hiring manager, recruiter, and probably no one else. As an everyday grunt, this stuff wouldn't even be brought up to me.

Having a 2 people added to a blacklist is fine. I've done far worse things to my career.

You shouldn't do it because it's wrong, and as a result you should feel bad about yourself. You cheated at the game we're all playing and added to the general mistrust that makes negotiating employment so shitty in the first place.

Wow. Should one got an exploding offer, the correct behavior IMO is to tell the recruiter to eat sh!t, or possibly, tell the recruiter that his attitude sucks, and because of it, you'll be waiting until the day after the deadline to make your decision. Alternatively, there is nothing about the GP or GGGP's comments that make the described behavior wrong. That's incredibly naive. You use the word _cheating_? "Cheating at the game we're all playing" is what you said. What the hell are you talking about? The game is negotiation, and if you can't do that, maybe you need to leave. If negotiating employment is shitty to you, you're doing it wrong. Learn how to do it right, and maybe that will adjust your attitude in the right direction.

edit: ok, you don't need to be as rude as I am, but I'm a known asshole, so ymmv.

Cheating = going back on something to which you've agreed. Once you sign, you're done negotiating. You can tell someone to fuck off before you sign a contract, but once it's signed, telling them to fuck off is cheating.

If someone wants to trounce all over your labor rights, and if telling them not to trounce on your labor rights counts as burning bridges, then burn, bridge, burn.

Last time I was looking for a job I ended up with offers from both places I was interviewing at. I renegotiated and signed one of the offer letters.

When I called the other company, they asked me to sign with them even though I'd already signed a different offer. Because this is tech and people do it all the time.

It just felt dirty. I had already made my choice, and would not have changed my mind. But I've got an older mentality where it feels like I am burning bridges if I reneg after signing an offer.

As someone who has been on the other side of the table hearing the news that a great candidate has just taken another offer, I share your mentality. I'm not going to try to get a candidate who has made up their mind to break their newly-signed contract. And a candidate who would accept an offer only then to instantly break it because someone threw a few more dollars at them isn't the type of person I want to work with.

It's one thing if someone says they are debating between a couple offers (as you did); at that point I'll fight hard for the candidate that I want. But the instant someone commits to an offer somewhere else they're entirely off limits and I wouldn't ever counter-offer at that point even if they would take it.

I'd try to hire him again. If possible above the former offered position. I like people able to stand up for their interests.

You totally can. It happens all the time. Sorry but them's the breaks.

People absolutely remember stuff like this, and the justification of "well, it was a shitty exploding offer" doesn't hold up. 99% of the time, the hiring manager is using a boilerplate offer that their whole company uses, and would probably kill the due date in a heartbeat if you just asked.

If you ask, they say no, and then you reneg on the offer, it's kinda shitty but somewhat understandable. If you don't ask about the exploding offer in the first place, that's 100% you being a passive-agressive dick.

>hiring manager is using a boilerplate exploding offer >that's 100% you being a passive-aggressive dick.

The exploding offer is a psychological manipulation designed to give the company leverage in negotiations, how is that not passive-aggressive?

Sure, my point is, it's not something that's on your hiring manager, or even necessarily the HR department. In 100% of cases when I've run into this, from both the company and candidate side, the offer expiry was something that was more-or-less in there by default and no one had a problem removing when asked.

Hm, good point. Thanks for the inside info. It just seems that usually when something is described as corporate policy it implies that it's not the managers decision, so if in reality it's 100% optional then that's misleading.

You're adding details. I don't think that anyone is advocating tricking companies who don't care either way into making exploding offers through your own feigned indifference to whether the offer expires or not, then quitting on the first day.

Keep in mind though - if you do this pull this off there's a chance you may be permanently blacklisted by the company. What's the guarantee you won't pull the same move next time around?

I don't fault with the recruiter's pressure move at all. I mean the company probably has taken the job listing off and preparing for your orientation.

I understand the sentiment about at-will employment and companies can fire you at any time... but whenever there is a question of "Can I do this in a non-bridge-burning way?" you should take that path.

And this is how you create a world where you can't trust anyone to follow through with their commitments.

That world doesn't need to be created, it's the world we have now.

Very dependent on who you work with.

Of course the people exist (and that's why there's contracts to begin with... though it's also to clarify what's being agreed upon), but a lot of society is predicated on 99% of people not being jerks.

>but a lot of society is predicated on 99% of people not being jerks

Maybe thats why the 1% are so successful then.

Being a jerk is like being (and very correlated to) short volatility[1]. Most of the time it's profitable. Every once in a while the world goes upside down, all the jerks are rounded up, have their stuff confiscated, tortured, and killed.

- 1789 French Revolution (Aristocracy rounded up and killed)

- 1911 Chinese Revolution (Ruling class rounded up and killed)

- 1917 Russian Revolution (Ruling class rounded up and killed)

- 1966 Chinese Cultural Revolution (Landholders rounded up and killed)

- 2003 Iraq War (Ruling class killed)

- 2011 Libyan War (Ruling class rounded up and killed)

[1] Buy short volatility with SVXY https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSEARCA:SVXY

I would say that most of the jerks are not among the most successful people (though perhaps there are more jerks than non-jerks up there...)

If they don't like it that way they should offer some minimum term of employment or a two-way minimum notice period.

I think the situation is already balanced in terms of expectations that both parties won't be dicks. If a company gave you a job offer, and then rescinded it the day before you started, after you've quit your previous job, you would be perfectly justified screaming from the rooftops that the company dicked you over.

But ultimately there is nothing contractually stopping either party from being dicks, which is what we expect contracts to provide.

If you pressure people to agree to something, it's your own damn fault if they change their mind.

Give people time to consider their options, and they 'll be less likely to change their mind.

At my place, reneging carries a significant negative tone (it is also where I learned the word). It is also deeply against the culture here to miss commitments willfully and without notice.

In particular, one tentative but reneged new hire was on a visa from India. I'm not sure what happens there. Though I'm not sure if the visa was sponsored by my place or not.

I wouldn't. But. I've seen plenty of stories from friends who had received a written offer and then had it rescinded before/on the start date. There's no legal recourse.

Still, it's shitty, and I don't engage in shitty behaviour just because someone else does it.

Don't ever reneg on something you signed. All these small defections to acquire a small advantage for yourself poison the well for anyone trying to act honorably.

I work at startups, the company I pulled this with folded 2 months ago. As someone whose been both an engineer and a manager, I really don't care about feelings when it comes to my life. I'm not going to work some place out of "honor" and waste years of my life if a better opportunity comes along.

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