Offer Strategies to Secure Great Talent for Your Business

Reaching offer stage is testament to a successful and well executed search, encompassing candidate attraction, engagement and management, a structured interview process and understanding of a client’s strategy and needs.  Having invested all of that time and effort there is nothing worse for the client, candidate and executive search company to lose the desired candidate at offer stage, especially if it is down to salary/compensation. 

During my 27 years' of experience in executive search I have learnt some strategies to help avoid this. Trusting your executive search partner to manage the offer and negotiation stage at the end of a recruitment process can add real value, as well as save the costly and timely mistake of having to start a hiring process again from scratch. 

As senior level hiring can take weeks or even months, it’s very often the search company consultant who has worked at building a deep relationship and trust with the candidate.  Outside of the formalities, getting to understand what motivates them, their personality, interests, how accepting a particular role may impact their family, their negotiation style, expectations and limitations, long term aspirations, as well as wider motivations and purpose. Taking into consideration all of these factors, it is essential to carefully manage the offer stage at executive level.  How the offer is presented can be as important as the offer itself. We really do highly recommend that you work hand in hand with your recruitment partner.  An open and honest discussion with your executive search partner to share the salary and compensation benefits that are on the table ahead of approaching the candidate, allows the search recruitment agency to advise on a candidate's likely response, pre-empt potential questions or objections and also offers the opportunity to “test the waters”. 

What are the parameters to negotiate? A pre-agreed, well thought out, structured strategy is essential in helping to speedily manage the negotiation process, if an offer is initially turned down.  Could an onboarding (golden handshake) bonus be considered or any other incentives? Manage expectations early on.  As an executive search consultancy we take the time to understand what will motivate our candidates to accept an offer and it is NOT always the remuneration package!  Overall package and comprehensive benefits, bonus structures, opportunities to learn and develop, flexible working policies – these can all be shared early on in the hiring process.

Personalise - More often than not our inhouse talent and HR teams are navigating multiple candidates and a volume of requirements.  We can add high impact and value here for example working with the candidate to rank and prioritize their key decision making factors, pre our client formally putting out an offer. 

Communication – allowing the search firm to verbally present an offer, ideally in person before the client presents a written offer. This allows time for ongoing discussion and questions/concerns to be raised and addressed.  It’s typically a deal breaker if a candidate feels they have wasted their time in an interview process and are being undervalued at offer stage. "Low balling" a candidate is rarely a successful strategy!

Speed and efficiency – mismanaged or delayed offers can lead to frustration on the candidate’s part and ultimately turning down an opportunity.  The greatest talent remains in demand.  If your competitors have a slicker offer process, have structures in place if their key decision makers are on leave, or quicker offer processes which can be rolled out despite public holidays they will be the companies whose offers are accepted. We can also provide support and advice to our candidates on managing their resignation, helping to mitigate counter-offers. Remember, we all want the best outcome for our clients and candidates and these tips can help set the offer stage up for success.

Feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss this subject or are looking for some ideas as you manage a candidate offer process.