I'll take this a step further and say that the optimal time to be job hunting is *before* you're motivated to find a new job: either wanting to leave your current one or finding yourself unemployed.

People always talk about competing offers, but your negotiating power will never be higher than when you literally don't care if you get an offer or not. If I'm perfectly content in my current gig, the only way I'm leaving is for a *serious* upgrade. And it's no skin off my teeth if I walk away from a bad deal.

Unless you’re seeking your first job in a specific industry, this advice is the most valuable in this thread. Competing offers are beneficial only if you’re already a well-known figure in your niche.

Not really, you just have to convince them they are.

Sometimes you're desperate for a job and they have you over a barrel, but there's no reason they need to know that.