Sometimes the exploding offers are real, because a specific team or startup needs a single new employee with a very specific skillset yesterday, and if you don't take it they're going to make an offer to their next best choice -- and by the time you decide you're ready to take it, the position is filled.
And sometimes they're totally made up, to try to get you to take a lower offer because they want a decision in the next 3 days and the other company you're interviewing with is going to take another 3 weeks to decide. When the reality is that if you came back 3 weeks later, they'd still totally hire you, despite everything they said previously. "I swear we never do this, but with your interview performance, we'll write up a new offer letter."
So it's always just a gamble.
But at the same time, you can also do it to companies -- I did once. I had an offer from one company that was exploding at the end of the week, and I went to the company I wanted to work for that had been delaying scheduling interviews, and said here's the deal: if you want to consider hiring me, you've got 2 days to interview me and make a decision. That lit a fire under their butt, I interviewed the next day, and they made me their offer at 4 pm Fri, when my other offer expoded at 5 pm. And so I got the job at the company I did want, faster than I ever would have otherwise!.(And possibly for more money, but I'll never know -- they simply matched my other offer which was pretty high at a really boring terrible company.)
Sometimes the exploding offers are real, because a specific team or startup needs a single new employee with a very specific skillset yesterday, and if you don't take it they're going to make an offer to their next best choice -- and by the time you decide you're ready to take it, the position is filled.
And sometimes they're totally made up, to try to get you to take a lower offer because they want a decision in the next 3 days and the other company you're interviewing with is going to take another 3 weeks to decide. When the reality is that if you came back 3 weeks later, they'd still totally hire you, despite everything they said previously. "I swear we never do this, but with your interview performance, we'll write up a new offer letter."
So it's always just a gamble.
But at the same time, you can also do it to companies -- I did once. I had an offer from one company that was exploding at the end of the week, and I went to the company I wanted to work for that had been delaying scheduling interviews, and said here's the deal: if you want to consider hiring me, you've got 2 days to interview me and make a decision. That lit a fire under their butt, I interviewed the next day, and they made me their offer at 4 pm Fri, when my other offer expoded at 5 pm. And so I got the job at the company I did want, faster than I ever would have otherwise!.(And possibly for more money, but I'll never know -- they simply matched my other offer which was pretty high at a really boring terrible company.)