When you finally meet the right candidate for your business there is an inevitable mixture of emotions. Firstly, relief, you’ve identified the skillset you know the business needs. Secondly, excitement, the realisation of what this person could help you to achieve. And thirdly anxiety, this is a special individual, you don’t want to now lose out on them and waste the already considerable time and resources spent in unearthing and engaging them.
To ensure these efforts and emotions are not for nothing, the final step you take, the offer, must be an assured one.
We’ve highlighted 5 elements:
1) Move quickly
Delays kill deals and this is especially true at the offer stage. High-quality candidates are often exposed to competing offers, if you delay your offer you can bet that another company, or worse, a competitor will not delay theirs.
2) Make it personal
The offer letter is essential, and a thoughtful companion email is useful, but make sure both of these channels are backed up by a phone or skype call to formally make the offer. This personal touch demonstrates your enthusiasm for the candidate and gives you a useful opportunity to understand their commitment level.
3) Embrace and combat the counteroffer
That doesn’t mean telling the candidate about the pitfalls of accepting counteroffers and how unhappy they will eventually become if they do. It’s about understanding the stresses and anxieties implicit in the resignation process
4) Make sure the offer reflects the process
Job interviewing processes continually evolve and change until they reach their conclusion. Your image of the candidate, what drives them and what they can do will naturally develop over time and your eventual offer should reflect the specifics of what you have learned as far as you have the flexibility to do this.
5) Don’t waste this final opportunity for appraisal
When the offer letter is signed and the candidate has resigned you have a new employee. Up until this point, you have the right (and indeed the obligation) to maximise the use of time (without lollygagging) to learn all you can about the person you are building this offer for. When taking references for example, do not view this task as a tick box exercise, use these live conversations to learn as much as you can about your prospective new employee and continue to complete the puzzle, if the references throw up questions, find answers to those questions.
Read the next in the series to discover the ‘4 secrets to start up onboarding success’