I think I wrote a thread about this earlier. When is it ok to bluff about a pending job offer to get the employer to make an offer to you? Company has been dragging its feet but has constantly come back to me to say to "hold tight" the hiring manager hasn't made a final decision yet.
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2 weeks usually means you're good enough to keep on the line but not good enough to outright hire. They are definitely still interviewing. I would bluff and say you have another offer you have to respond to but prefer this opportunity. They will have to respond. Best case you get the job, worst case you lose a job you never had. Keep us updated.
how would they fact check you?
I get where OP's head is at here. He thinks bluffing an offer may force the company to decide whether they want to cease their process to extend an offer to him or decide to continue to interview knowing they will lose on this candidate.
I think in this case its best for OP to look for other opportunities. He's had the interview at this point and done all he can. Just needs to wait it out and see what they decide. Perhaps they've had a promising list of candidates they want to meet before making an offer.
I am in the same boat with a couple of interviews I have gone through and on that 2 week mark as well. I'm just trying to make sure I am actively pursuing worthwhile opportunities while waiting to hear back and not hanging my hat on any previous interviews.
I think it only makes sense to try and accelerate the process & force a decision when you truly have another offer that you are seriously considering. I've done this once when given an exploding offer and asked another company I was interviewing with for an accelerated process. Ended up hearing that I was their #2 guy and most likely they'll close the #1 guy so went with the alternative offer.
I'm a big fan of flaunting value and making myself look wanted during the interview process.
My first job out of college, I was very confident in my final round interview, but it was taking a while for the firm to extend an offer. At the beginning of the process, I let the recruiter know that I was interviewing with several firms (true, but they were shit firms) with a job offer already secured (true, but this job was way better) so that I could pull strings later. After I deemed it taking too long, I wrote an email to the talent manager, saying that I had a pending offer from a competitive firm (because why the fuck not?) Almost immediately, he sent an email asking if he could call me that day and at that point, probabilistically, I knew I had it. I took the call as though I was seriously considering the competitive offer (non-existent), he asked me how much they were offering and I threw out one of the higher numbers from Management Consulted. The talent manager threw me a signing bonus and a very competitive salary.
I'm actually going through a recruiting cycle right now where I've been getting blown up on LinkedIn with a few kind of interesting offers, but there is one that I am particularly interested in. They've agreed to give me a look and although I am technically qualified, I lack tenure compared to who I'll be competing with. Since I'm actually quite comfortable in my current role, I've taken the liberty to flaunt value because I'm not sure how high I am on the talent manager's list of candidates. I've written an email to the hiring manager detailing all interviews that I am currently taking with role and company respectively (4 in total). The tone of the email and general message was that, "I want to keep the theme of honesty and transparency rolling". I have rapport with the particular talent manager, he likes me and although this move could be misconstrued negatively (un-professional, blatant tactic), I don't have anything to lose. Throughout our engagement, I have been the consummate professional which gives me enough goodwill to pull this. Also, he views me more as "Computer Technical" and is therefore, less likely to deem this as an interpersonal tactic given the stigma. This whole exercise goes wayyyy deeper than this, but I could fill up paragraphs of weighing variables and I'd rather WSO not think I'm a sociopath.
This whole strategy is extremely subjective to your exact situation with a ton of variables mixed-in. You're basically gambling on your EQ, situational-awareness and self-awareness. To me, this was a calculated risk that I'm willing to take to strengthen my candidacy.
Play the game, but know how to play.
Never...unless you're ok with being a liar. You can try to pretty it up by playing with the wording ("bluff"), but it's lying, and your integrity is questionable at best. Somehow, lying is ok when there's a buck to be made? You're on a bad path. People don't like to hear the truth when it's calling them out, so I'm sure that there will be plenty of monkey crap thrown this way, but lying doesn't magically become ok when it's you who's doing it.