Be prepared to let an exploding offer explode.

As a candidate, there's not much you can do about companies that won't interview additional candidates or extend offers until after the previous top pick refuses their offer. It ultimately comes down to whether the company is hiring the right person to fill a specific position, or whether they are hiring a good candidate and then finding the right position for them to fill. The former is willing to leave runners-up candidates in limbo while their top pick has an offer in hand. Doing that necessarily extends process time for other companies in the same market. And it can produce deadlocks.

On Monday, Candidate A interviews at Company X, and Candidate B interviews at Company Y. On Tuesday, B interviews at X, and A interviews at Y. On Friday, X extends an offer to A and tells B that they are still interested, and Y offers for B, and tells A they are still interested. But both A and B want to compare offers from X and Y. X and Y both want their outstanding offers to be accepted or rejected before making another one. The companies pressure the candidates to decide quickly. The candidates expect that the second offers will be coming in any day now, because the companies keep saying they are "working on it".

Now we have a game-theory problem. Companies play the odd rounds, Candidates play the even rounds. Company moves are "offer X", "reject", or "pass". Candidate moves are "offer X", "withdraw", "pass", and "rejected". When a company enters the game, their first play is all "reject", and for each subsequent round they play, they score -1. When a candidate enters the game, their first play must be all "withdraw" or "pass", and for each subsequent round they play, they score -1.

If a candidate plays a round with no "offer X" moves, they may leave the game, scoring 0. If a company plays a round with no "offer X" moves, they may leave the game, scoring 0. If a company plays a round with an "offer X" AND the candidate has one matching "offer X" and all other moves are "withdraw" or "rejected", the player may exit the game, the company scoring VALUE(COMPANY,CANDIDATE)-X and the candidate scoring X. If the company meets applicable exit criteria after all candidates exit, they may also exit with no penalty. The output of the VALUE() function is not known precisely to the company prior to scoring, but an approximate value somewhere within 0.618 and 1.618 of the actual scoring value is freely available during play.

So if the playfield is populated with companies that only have one "offer X" out at a time, with a lot of "pass" moves, how does one counter that as a candidate?

One that comes to mind is for the candidate to stay in the game when they could otherwise exit, exploiting that fact that companies only score when candidates exit. Accept the expiring offer, and simply don't start work for that company until after other potential offers come in. If a better offer comes in, change the previous one to "withdraw" and exit with a higher score.

As with other games that can be reduced to simple rules, this one can produce complex strategies which may involve alliances, deception, cartelization, and secret signaling. And repeated consecutive games may enable strategies that are not possible in single games.