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It really stinks when a candidate turns down an offer you worked hard to finalize.
But it stinks even more when it happens over and over again. Especially for those top candidates you’re most excited about.
If you find yourself in this situation, where candidates are saying “no,” or simply ghosting you in the interview process, there are likely some underlying reasons for it.
Below we’ve outlined some of the most common concerns that will help you get back on the right track — closing offers and getting the talent you really want.
Company Culture May Be Pushing Candidates Away
Certain aspects of your company culture could be causing talent to float away.
For example, if you’re still insisting that people work in an office every day, you’re likely going to lose candidates to companies offering a more flexible schedule.
People want flexibility. They want to control their own schedules.
They want to avoid the costs and hassles of a commute. They want the freedom to live wherever they want, or to be mobile as digital nomads.
If your company can’t promise top candidates the flexibility of remote work, your competitors will.
Culture decisions like these can result in candidates dismissing your company as they can’t picture themselves there, happy and thriving.
If you believe your company culture is strong, but candidates aren’t seeing or feeling that, you may just need to focus on talent branding a bit more.
Leverage a visual-heavy medium like Instagram to show the best parts of your company, your employees, and the culture you create.
Candidate Offers Not Being Extended Quickly Enough
Having worked in compensation for a while now, I can confidently say delayed offers are the primary reason companies lose candidates.
It’s not always easy to get an offer out the door.
Because a new hire offer requires the Hiring Manager, a Recruiter, a Comp Manager, and an Executive at minimum, it can be hard to get all those people to communicate swiftly and decisively.
And it’s not a simple “yes” or “no” answer that Recruiters need to extend the offer quickly.
Recruiters need a total compensation plan, often with bonuses and equity, which take longer for approval.
They need to document the rationale we had for wanting to hire this person.
Simply put, Recruiters are doing their most labor intensive work when candidates are simply waiting to hear back.
Both recruiters and the candidates are eager for the offer to be finalized.
That said, any process or method you can use to speed up offer letters will greatly improve your chances of landing a top candidate.
This is true of most candidates you’d like to hire. The faster you get them a considered offer, the more likely they are to be excited and visualize themselves at your company.
But it’s even more important for the best candidates, because they are most certainly interviewing with other companies, and will likely have a competing offer.
Much like in Sales, the offer that arrives first is the one more likely to seal the deal.
Speed up your time to offer and you’re almost certain to improve your chances of landing the best candidates as you continue to hire.
The Offer Letter Is Dull
It might seem like a formality, but your offer letters say quite a lot about your company.
Think about it.
Imagine you’re a high school senior applying to your dream schools.
You apply to Brown, Harvard, Duke, Stanford, and Western Michigan, where you’re from.
You get accepted at Harvard, and Western Michigan, and they send a congratulations letter attached to an email.
The Harvard acceptance letter is going to look much different than the Western Michigan letter.
That’s not to knock your hometown or the local U, but there are different vibes to Kalamazoo and Cambridge.
When you look at those offer letters side by side, you will inevitably begin to imagine yourself accepting one or the other.
And the one on Harvard letterhead with a beige background is simply more appealing than an MS Word doc.
Have marketing take a look at the offer letters you’re sending to see if they can improve the language for a bit more excitement, and design for improved aesthetics.
It’s a small endeavor, but it can have a major psychological impact on your candidates, and help you stand out among any competing offers.
Improve Offer Speed and Design
Time-to-offer is clearly your best bet for improving candidate acceptance rates.
But showing a positive, healthy company culture, and paying attention to details like an awesome cover letter, will help your candidate see themselves working with you.
Make improvements on all these fronts, and you’re really upping your chances for landing the right candidates at the right time.
Pequity customers do exactly this with digital offers and a recruiter workbench to give you all the tools to help you make offers with confidence.
If you’re curious enough to get a demo, we’d love to show you exactly how we automates HR workflows to save you time, money and talent.
Get a demo today and make hiring your big advantage.