The offer stage is one of the most sensitive—and important—parts of the hiring process. That’s why it must be handled with care and preparation.
Unfortunately, not all companies approach the offer stage of the process with as much care and preparation as they should. The result: candidates that turn down their offer.
After it happens, company officials are often left wondering where it all went so wrong. In hindsight, though, the answer is simple . . . if you look closely enough.
In this blog post, we’re going to tackle the issue from a numerical standpoint, with the help of industry trainer Terry Petra and his article on the Top Echelon website: “4 Numbers Clients Should Know Before Making an Offer.”
According to Petra, those four numbers are as follows:
#1—The salary you can afford to pay
This means what you have budgeted for the position. If you don’t know what you can afford to pay, how do you expect to make an accurate or compelling offer? If you do know what you can afford to pay and you do NOT communicate that to the recruiter working on the search, it might indicate that you don’t trust the recruiter. If that’s the case, perhaps you should enlist the services of another recruiter.
#2—The current market value for the position
Your recruiter (if you’re working with one) should be able to provide this information for you. After all, they “work in the trenches” day in and day out and are up-to-date with all of the current industry trends, including compensation for the positions in which they’re placing candidates. If you don’t work with a recruiter, you’ll have to rely on internal personnel to know this number.
#3—The current level of compensation for all short-list candidates
This is the second number that your recruiter can provide for you. They’ve presented these candidates to you for consideration, so they’re more than likely in possession of this information. Ideally, they should provide it for you prior to your first interview with each of the candidates.
#4—The exact level of compensation needed to guarantee acceptance of the offer
This is perhaps the most important number, since to ensure acceptance of the offer, you must know this number prior to making the offer. Once again, your recruiter should be able to provide this information, and once again, if you’re not working with a recruiter on the search, securing this information becomes more difficult.
Do you know these numbers before making an offer of employment to a candidate? If not, you’re increasing the chances that the candidate will reject your offer—and quite possibly send your search back to square one.
We help support careers in one of two ways: 1. By helping to find the right opportunity when the time is right, and 2. By helping to recruit top talent for the critical needs of organizations. If this is something you would like to explore further, please send an email to stacy@thevetrecruiter.com