Any recruiter will tell you that this is an employment seeker’s marketplace. Employers and recruiters are having difficulty finding competent candidates, and yet when they do so, there is no certainty that the offer will be accepted. Candidates usually have several alternatives in a particularly competitive work market. As a result, recruiters should strive hard and more ingeniously to find new employees who are the perfect fit for their organisations.
Studies suggest that there is a 20% or 1 in 5 chance of a candidate declining an offer in the IT sector as compared to 15% in other industries.
Any steps taken for a post-offer engagement generate a huge ROI. We will now navigate how a thorough post engagement strategy can help you overcome that.
How can you do it as a company?
- Quick turn around rate for offers
In this industry, you have to anticipate that other firms are seeking the same prospects you are. Lengthier the time of the process, your competitors have a higher chance of swooping in. The offer process should be at lightning pace since if the companies have multiple layers of approval, it will not be in favour of their hiring speed.
There are multiple touch-points in the process such as exceptional numbers, blanket approvals, specific approvals, budget approvals, and any exceptional approvals that require tending to. Everything should be in place in order to go ahead and make the offer faster so that it is not stuck in the vicious cycle of the approval process.
- Communication that connects
It is so much more than the offer numbers being high. This has many aspects associated with it, the most important being engagement and a sense of belonging. Many times, a candidate remarks that ‘It was just the right fit for me.’
It is very important how a company culturally represents itself to make that offer. Many candidates have experienced a “Take it or leave it” situation which gives a sense of detached association from the company and reflects poorly on it. For better recall, it is crucial to make the offer celebratory from the company angle so as to make the candidate feel welcomed.
A handshake between the hiring manager and the candidate after presenting the offer is also important because, in the end, the hiring or the reporting manager is someone they will be working with for the long haul. Your goal is to make the candidate feel that this was just not a company they applied to but now it’s a company they belong to.
- Immediately roll out the post-offer package
A couple of days after the offer is rolled out, provide the candidate with a basic onboarding kit that includes content like organization culture videos or welcome notes from leaders. It gives the candidate the liberty to check into the work environment. Send the candidate tools like business culture films or introduction video messages from executives a few days after presenting the offer. The candidate has the option of reviewing the material whenever it is convenient for them.
Urge them to contact you if they have any other questions. Once a more comprehensive image of the company emerges in their minds, the likelihood that they’ll put their job hunt on hold and accept your offer rises.
Post offer acceptance, having recurring touchpoints on a weekly basis like a catch-up call in person or zoom call, bringing them to the office, if feasible, connecting them with other team members, sending a regular company update, adding them to a mailing list of a close group of employees who need to be updated with certain progress at a team as well as company level.
How do you go about as On-Demand Recruiters?
Recruiters, unlike AI, and machine learning, are truly required in these areas and are very hard to replace. If this part of the process is broken and inefficient it means that the recruitment is inefficient.
- Make timely communication a top priority
It is predominant to check the pulse of the candidate beyond just ‘Yes’, ‘No’, and ‘Maybe’ answers. Do not fall into the trap of binary answers- which sadly almost 80% of the recruiters end up doing. This is exactly that area where recruiters need to leverage their intuitive capabilities. If the candidate is probing you for answers, these binary answers should be avoided since they lead to a lack of post-offer engagement. There will be a lot of queries from possible applicants. Answering their questions is the greatest practice.
The candidate is donating their time and effort to you. As a result, you should make it a top priority. You should update the candidates on their progress after each stage of the recruiting process. They will be able to make adjustments with the support of actionable feedback.
Recruiters, unlike AI, and machine learning, are truly required in these areas and are very hard to replace. If this part of the process is broken and inefficient it means that the recruitment is inefficient.
- Make sure your candidates are aware of what to expect
Any information about the company and its ecosystem, industry insights, sharing recent information, and encouraging and boosting the energy of the candidate. Being the knowledge owner while being the controller of the recruitment process. This earns a lot of respect from the candidate. 68% of the candidates feel that the candidate hiring process will be parallel to how they will be treated as an employee.
An early NO is better so that you can prepare for other candidates rather than prolonging the answer for so long that they end up seeking and taking up other opportunities.
- Build a solid candidate pipeline for all roles
Always having a couple of candidates as a backup throughout the process even after a candidate has accepted the offer for some of the most critical roles where the demand and supply are skewed is most important.
Especially where the ratio of offer acceptance to joining is very low, having a Plan B candidate at the advanced stage of the interview pipeline is a smart move. Both companies should ask and nudge for it as a part of the process.
The process needs to be tweaked now and the recruiters constantly need to have such a pipeline ready, such interview level candidates ready because otherwise, it turns out to be a bigger loss at the revenue level.
Not having backup candidates leads to starting from scratch from Day1 i.e if it takes 45 days with one candidate in the pipeline and it does not work out, it will take at least another 45 days for another candidate to go through the process.
- Keep looking out for red flags
If possible, have a zoom call or an in-person meeting with the candidate once the offer is accepted. It might be a red flag if the candidate refuses to meet despite being in the same city. It’s a big signal. Such signals are required to be assessed.
Start measuring how candidates and you are engaged. Define a schedule for engagement in your daily recruiting life. Share those early readings and early signals with your stakeholders like the company account manager or hiring manager.
- Be Vigilant
If a candidate is applying for other jobs or their profile is showing active in seeking new opportunities. Probe further and ask whether they are not happy with the presented offer. Building relationships with candidates yields honesty.
Having patience and making repetitive efforts to build a relationship/connection will fructify into a transparent trustworthy equation. Skilled recruiters are constantly seeking people who aren’t looking for work; these individuals are normally the finest performers and aren’t applying for several positions.
How Spottabl has excelled in this high offer decline phase?
Spottabl has a lot of processes designed which have the right nudges placed for the right time. Spottabl’s product also enables how the candidate engagement is going. Right nudges at the right time help the recruiters get the right signals and precisely mention how to keep them engaged.
Spottabl has a system where the candidates, as well as recruiters, get scored. High-scoring recruiters on offer declines get repetitive revenue-making opportunities. We have designed the process, and the orientation in such a way that the recruiters get guided constantly on the platform itself. The platform is intuitively designed to have the right points at the right time.
Right interventions or nudges ensure the health of candidate engagement is intact, is there a backup pipeline, Spottabl has mastered that by guiding you in a structured way.
