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The Art of the Job Offer: Encourage Candidates to Turn You Down by Viktor Stephen, Recruitment Manager, Get.Next.Job

The Art of the Job Offer: Encourage Candidates to Turn You Down

By : Viktor Stephen, Recruitment Manager, Get.Next.Job
Industry : Human Resources (HR) Consulting Functional Area : Recruitment
Activity:  12 comments  419 views  last activity : 07 06 2010 20:18:04 +0000
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Build the best team by lowering your job offer acceptance rate

 Most people go about giving a job offer in the wrong way.  They try to sell the candidate and win them over.  There’s a better strategy.

As a hiring manager, your objective is to get great employees who are always thinking about the challenges ahead, love their job, and are a good fit with the company culture.  It is possible, with the right interview, to determine if someone is a great engineer ... but too often hiring managers only go after people with great talent.  They forget about fit and that's because fit is so hard to interview for and assess.  

One great way to determine fit is not to explicitly assess it all.  Instead, let the candidate make the choice and opt-out.  We've been extraordinarily successful at hiring here at GetNextJob and that’s because we encourage candidates to turn us down.

 First, don’t use the offer as an opportunity to sell the candidate.  Try to be honest and open with each candidate.  Tell them your goal for all employees is for them to love their jobs and that they should not take the job if they have doubts.  You've only been able evaluate the person for a dozen hours – but the candidate has known herself all her life.   She will be a much better judge if she fits the culture.

Next, be completely honest about the culture.   At GetNextJob, we take at least 15 minutes to spell out, in detail, the company culture.   Tell them your organization's quirks and what is expected of employees.  Some of the many things that are particular to GetNextJob that we tell all candidates:

  • We’re frugal.  We’ll wait until we’re very profitable before we pay for fancy dinners.
  • We give each other a good dose of constructive criticism.  We happily give and take criticism.  We want to better ourselves and the others around us. 
  • We do not value our own ideas more than those ideas generated by our teammates.  
  • We work long hours.  We believe great things are accomplished 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration. 
  • We believe the perfect is the enemy of the good.  This means we focus on getting things done, not on building the most perfect system.  We strongly believe in rapid iteration.

Really talk through the culture during the offer.   If you want your employees to work long hours, you better tell them that is expected before they accept the offer.  Conversely, if you believe strongly in a 40-hour workweek, tell the candidate because many people are looking to change the world and they want to work with people who really make the company mission a priority.  

The essential take-away is not to sugar-coat the experience.  Be completely honest.  

Then, tell the candidate your concerns about them.   Tell them what you like about them and what they will need to improve upon to be a productive employee.  And tell them not to take the job if they don’t think they can make those improvements.  This is the toughest thing for a hiring manager to do but it is important because it really sets the expectations.

Fourth, don't give candidates a long time to make a decision.   Two days is fair.   If they don’t know they want to work for you in two days, then they should probably turn down your job offer.

And give a salary that is a bit below market but give them a lot of stock.  You want to make sure candidates REALLY want to work at your company.   Then you should make sure you take care of your employees and give them frequent raises so they end up being paid above market.   This way you get the both worlds – employees who are really excited about the company and who are happy that they are appreciated by management (because of the frequent raises).  And  when your company increases its value, you want to make sure your employees benefit from the increased stock price.

Your goal as a hiring manager is get the best team member, not just the best athlete.   If you're managing a basketball team, you want someone that is a great player.   But you also need someone that will work well with the other team members and makes them all better.
 Top Comment : Veejay Bhatia   | 12 11 2008 21:40:43 +0000
Thanx for the referral, Viktor. Very true. If only most of the hiring managers can adhere to
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12 comments on "The Art of the Job Offer: Encourage Candidates to Turn You Down"
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  Commented by  Darpan Sinha, Solution Architect, Fujitsu Consulting India Pvt Ltd    | 03 10 2009 09:21:32 +0000
Rating : +2  
Yea transperancy is the best thing. but i will say if u turn down your offer it will spread a bad word of mouth for the company and then the guy will ceartanly not join as one will qes the HR polices of the co.....
  Commented by  Murana Ibrahim Alaba, Student, Student    | 03 04 2009 13:58:20 +0000
Rating : +1  
I AM LOCATED IN NIGERIA AND CURRENTLY SEEKING SOMEONE WHO CAN GIVE ME A LINK TO GET AN EDUCTIONAL LOAN TO STUDY IN INDIA
  Commented by  Prakash Francis, Director, Enterprise Hiring Solutions    | 02 17 2009 07:28:57 +0000
Rating : +2  
Appreciate the straight forward manner in which you put forth your thoughts. 

But, it seems the premise of the whole exercise is to scare away as many candidates as possible :). 

Honesty need not necessarily mean showing of the negatives.A candidate might find the work content to be great but a bare all warts attitude - at the offer stage might leave us only with candidates who are totally desperate.
  Commented by  Bellala Gopinatha Rao, Project Manager Promax Management Consultants    | 01 03 2009 13:06:50 +0000
Rating : +2  
Nice one thanks
  Commented by  Arvind Ramaiya, Project Leader/Managing Consultant, Arvind Ramaiya    | 12 12 2008 15:35:21 +0000
Rating : +3  
I actually like the idea, and given I come from Australia where you need to sell yourself to the company, and almost never vice versa.

The example is along lines of a behavioral style of interviews to predict performance. And incentives rather than a Cost To The Company package.

Not sure how well a HR strategy like this one will work in a market like India, and in previous years I know the smart ones tend to come to the table with multiple offers already in hand
  Commented by  prasad narasimhan, Tech Architect, Cognizant    | 12 12 2008 14:58:21 +0000
Rating : +3  
Candidate gets pleased and join the company based on the various factors like work atmosphere, reputation of the company, culture which prevails in the company, expectation of the candidate getting matched with the company in terms of the Designation, Career growth and last but not the least salary.
None of the company i feel dont want their employees to suffer,but on the contrary if the company does not takes care of the employees by putting effecient norms and promotions based on the merit and not by politics then such company will be boon to the employee. 
I see a employee friendly atmosphere by US owned companies in terms of care which indian companies plan to offset by salary levels. I have laid down my thoughts but this is a good thinking in the right direction i suppose
  Commented by  UDAY PRATAP SINGH, Asst. Director/Director, UDMITA FILMS    | 12 12 2008 04:55:26 +0000
Rating : +2  
Hi Victor 
 While taking decision one must use PRESENCE OF MIND...as each and every candidate  is having different potential...!
  Commented by  Raja.S, Director - Founder    | 12 12 2008 04:22:50 +0000
Rating : +3  
Good one Viktor.. Too practical is all I can say..
But so many HRs here give a gigantic picture about the company or simply hide out things when they conduct the interview.

You may not believe, I use to interview the managers at coffee shops or in parks. That makes them comfortable to speak. I make things easy when I speak to them.
  Commented by  japi, HR Manager, ACME Consultants    | 12 12 2008 03:55:27 +0000
Rating : +1  
amazing thought
  Commented by  sushama p., Investment Advisor, Income Tax Consultant    | 12 12 2008 03:37:32 +0000
Rating : +2  
Thax Viktor...just d thing..v capital one.!!!
Rating : +2  
Thanx for the referral, Viktor. Very true. If only most of the hiring managers can adhere to
  Commented by  varsha ., Technical manger(QMS)    | 12 11 2008 16:28:53 +0000 
gud one....
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