I currently work at Amazon but for whatever reason finally took a Google recruiters call last week and figured, since I was going brush up on my fundamentals for the interview anyway, I might as well respond to a few other recruiters too - namely Facebook, Adobe and Oracle. So far I’ve only done a phone-screen with Google but when we were scheduling the on-site I was asked if I was interviewing anywhere else and I said no (technically I wasn’t yet) but as I expect to be asked this again by the others I wanted to know why they ask this and if will saying yes/no help or hurt me? Also - any thoughts between those companies? Eg, if all the offers were more or less the same so it was narrowed down to a question of work-culture etc - which would you prefer/avoid?
It's to see if they need to move faster to take you to each next step in the process. Getting an offer from Google can be 2 to 3 months from sourcer phone screen to extending an offer. If you are interviewing elsewhere the recruiters are supposed to keep your packet moving faster to reduce it to like 1 to 2 months. There have been many cases where candidates have started interviewing elsewhere after starting to interview at Google and then accepting an offer elsewhere before even clearing hiring committee. That's also the logic behind those exploring offers, to force you to choose before other offers become clear.
Having been in both sides of this equation, it is mostly for timing and planning purposes, but also if you are interviewing with other companies and you are one of the first candidates to interview for a position, it means that you have to impress them, because they do not know if a better candidate may come. So this can play both as advantage or disadvantage.
The correct answer is "Yes". For negotiation purposes you want them to think you're entertaining many offers.
Beware they may ask you to prove it. At the least they will ask who you are interviewing with. Especially if you say you have a better some written or digital proof will be needed if you are leveraging up.
You are thinking too much. I always say “if you ask me for proof, it means ok for me to show your offer to others, too.” Everyone will balk.
To know whether they should speed up the process or take their time.
It’s best to just say “I am very interested in your company or I wouldn’t be talking to you, but I want to find the best fit for me and the company I go to work for and so I am considering other opportunities as well.” It implies you want to get what’s best for you but you also care about the benefit to the company you end up choosing, which is good for both sides.
This is really too much. They are really not asking to be messy. Most of them just want to know if you have deadlines so they can know whether to speed your process or not. The only time I would use politically correct statements like this is when they are asking you for salary information.
It only comes across PC if you don’t actually mean what you’re saying.
Maybe, maybe not. You just make your best offer and I'll let you know if I decide to take it. don't worry about anything else :)
Hi! I’m a recruiter and we ask that question to better understand the layout of what you’re looking at. It helps better understand your timeline (E.G. If you’re at an on-site stage with one company and just starting the interview process at my company, I know I need to catch up) as well as what competition we have in terms of making an offer. It has little to no effect on what our offer will be because the big companies you referenced utilize compensation bands by levels to avoid essentially starting an auction for candidates. As recruiters, we simply like to be in the know so we can council our interviewing team appropriately. Perhaps one of our interviewers worked at one of those companies previously and can share their personal experiences. Things like that. Overall, I always encourage you to be honest and open with your recruiter. Don’t get me wrong; I know there are lots of bad recruiters out there but the good ones are going to fight on your behalf to get you your preferred interview date, compensation offer, team, etc and honesty about your activity helps with that.
Cool - that is kinda what I figured.
India
Yesterday
1917
Please vote sensibly 🙏
Tech Industry
Yesterday
2711
So hard being a women in tech industry
Tech Industry
Yesterday
29329
Google doing more layoffs, restructuring including country moves
2024 Tax
Yesterday
4707
Biden’s new tax proposal is wild
Tech Industry
Yesterday
972
Chances of meta clearing E5 with screwing up one coding one round and acing all other
Really interested in this answer as well, I have said no in the past, and then later informed them that I have also been contacted/interviewing since I started interviewing with the company who is asking and on multiple occasions get a response saying that they have moved on to other candidates. I’m wondering if you say it later in the process it appears you’re trying to leverage or are not actually interested in the company asking?