Interviewing with multiple firms and headhunters: game theory and leverage suggestions to speed up processes at better firms

I have reached out to every headhunter under the sun. They have all dangled very sexy roles in front of me for which I am eminently qualified. 

One headhunter put me in processes that might close within a week. The other headhunters haven't actually gotten me interviews yet - not slow timing, just not hyper-fast.

The roles I'm currently interviewing for are decent but not great. I want to use this to leverage the other headhunters to get the show on the road at other firms that are more aligned with my interests. 

However, I worry about saying "I am interviewing at B- firm. They like me and so are trying to get an offer within the week. However I'd like to work at A+ firm you're representing". I think this might not give me as much leverage as I hope because it's not like I'm interviewing for Apollo and using that as leverage for KKR.

How should I approach this? Thank you.

2 Comments
 

I’d be careful with this. They all know each other and I’m sure they talk so doing something like this could fuck you. 
 

That said, they are also all notorious prestige whores and will size you up by who else you’re interviewing with. If you happen to get a Blackstone interview and casually drop that to a headhunter, I wouldn’t be surprised if you suddenly got an interview invite from, say, Carlyle

 

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