You met a great candidate, and you are really excited to possibly bring them on the team, so you make them an offer.
But…
They turned down your offer.
You are wondering what went wrong and eventually, you might even tell yourself:
“ It wasn’t meant to be”.
The recruitment process has a lot of moving parts and a good chunk of those are not in our control: such as changes in personal or business circumstances, getting cold feet before signing on the dotted line, and so on.
But some parts are in our control and here are the three most common reasons as to why your job offers are turned down.
1. The interview process failed to create buy-in from candidates
Most interviews, at best, touch upon some of the benefits that prospective candidates gain if they join, and at worst, are focused on the “interrogation technique” where all the time is spent on questioning the candidate.
In any market, more so in this competitive market, it’s critical that employers engage in finding out what is of value to candidates, how they can deliver that value, and why here, with you, it’s the best place to gain that.
It can start with a simple question such as:
“ What improvement are you looking for with this job change? “
Or
“ What is the main thing you want to achieve, in your career, with this job move?”
The crux is for you, the employer, to actively engage in an open discussion with the candidate on what matters to them and if it fits with your value add, to highlight that and together, discuss how you can both achieve your goals.
This helps the candidate visualize the role, the business, quantify the value add they will gain, and how that directly makes a positive impact on their professional lives.
Failing to do this, will leave you competing solely on salary and I will take a guess and assume you don’t want to be in that place.
2. Under offer
You have your budget, and you are aware of the candidate’s expectations and market rates. Yet, you under-offer, perhaps to test whether they really want the job or to give yourself some room to wiggle.
This is a bad strategy for you to adopt because it’s very hard to come back from it once you under–offer.
If you want to give yourself room to wiggle, create a structured offer, whereas the salary increases are based on KPIs – make these clear and attainable.
If you underoffer because your budget simply does not allow it and it’s something that has been open from the get-go, see how you can balance the gap through non-monetary value add.
This can be anything from flexible scheduling, to 1 – 1 mentoring with a seasoned team member that will enhance their professional career, and so on.
3. Lack of medium – long-term clarity
The process focused only on the ” now” and failed to rope in the candidate on the role and the business in the medium-long term.
Like with the first point, it’s important to share the vision and deliverables of the business and the role, to discuss expectations of both parties in both the medium and long term, to ensure alignment, and more importantly, to help the candidate visualize how they would still fit here in the medium–long term.
Focusing on the “now” only is one of the reasons contributing to early staff turnover.
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