The duration of recruitment and hiring can be frustrating for employers, hiring professionals, and applicants. Not to mention, longer vacancies are becoming more commonplace due to lower unemployment rates and difficulty sorting through mountains of applications with scarce resources, time, and budget.
But when you finally find the perfect candidate, it takes a huge weight off your shoulders. There’s just one problem: extending an offer doesn’t mean the hiring process is over. An increasing number of studies have revealed in recent years that job seekers continue looking for a job after receiving an offer.
In fact, the average offer acceptance rate is only 69.3%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That means generally 30% of the time, you will lose out on a candidate you want.
It’s time to focus on an aspect of the candidate experience that is often overlooked: what happens after you extend a job offer.
Keep reading for three unique ways to keep candidates engaged after offering them a job.
Pro Tip: You increase your odds of their acceptance by finding innovative ways to continue to nurture your relationship with candidates even after they have the job offer.
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Create a Post-Offer Package
Once a job offer is extended, it’s appropriate to give the candidate room to think. Slamming their inbox with “Have you decided?” emails can and probably will scare them off, but there’s still an opportunity to offer valuable information about your company and remain engaged without being overbearing.
Even the most effective hiring process can’t delve into all the details of an organization and its team. And given the high-stress environment of job interviews and other screening steps, many candidates can’t fully digest all the details. This is where a post-offer package comes into play.
A few days after extending the offer, send the candidate helpful resources such as company culture videos or introductory video messages from leaders they will likely work with. The candidate can peruse the information whenever it’s convenient for them, providing them a way to learn more about your organization on their own terms.
Encourage them to reach out if new questions pop up, and if you can’t provide answers, connect them with the team member or leader who can showcasing a core value of team work.
As a more complete picture of the organization forms in their mind, it increases the odds they’ll make a hard stop on their job search, accepting your offer.
Connect Candidates with Current Employees
Job seekers are always looking for networking opportunities. While you wait for a candidate to decide, offer to arrange meetings with current employees or leaders they may work closely with.
For candidates, this creates a chance to grow their professional network, no matter their final decision. For your team, it increases the odds the candidate will say yes, given they have a positive experience.
Meeting with current employees during the screening and selection process helps create opportunities for relationships to form, and allows candidates to begin imagining what it would be like to interact with these team members and how their happiness will be impacted in the workplace daily.
It’s important to note that these meetings need to be casual and not feel forced.
After extending an offer, make a short list of employees who share professional commonalities with the candidate, which will offer a better opportunity for the current employee and candidate to connect in a positive way.
Remember, your team is busy so approach employees with transparency and clarity on the purpose of the conversation, understanding if they are too busy.
Once you have a volunteer, have the employee invite the candidate to meet. While you can ask the employee for feedback after the meeting, clarify that they are not assessing the candidate at this phase. This will ensure the atmosphere of the conversation is relaxed and natural.
Provide Constructive Feedback (and Keep Things Positive)
Your hiring process is a candidate’s chance to gauge how they’d be treated as an employee. Whether you realize it or not, the way candidates feel while being assessment and interviewed will impact their employment decision, which is why structure and transparency are so critical.
Career development is one factor that is very important to candidates; they want to know if the organization will support their continued learning and professional growth. Constructive feedback during the hiring process provides candidates with an opportunity to see that you care, even if they don’t end up with your company, and gives them some insight into what feedback might look like if they do accept your offer.
Identify ways to provide feedback at every step of the hiring process. For example, after the video interview, send an email that outlines what stood out about the candidate. Be specific. Show how their responses indicate they’ll be successful in the role
You can also take this moment to request information on something they mentioned that you want to learn more about, showing the candidate you care because you truly listened and giving them a chance to provide more detail or to explain, if you’re asking about something that is on the concerning-side.
Say Goodbye to Job Offer Drop-Off
Your part in the hiring process isn’t over just because you’ve made a job offer. Showing candidates you are still communicative, collaborative, and supportive through acceptance, onboarding, and well beyond enriches the candidate experience and reduces your chances of candidate drop-off.
Interested in learning more about how Spark Hire helps transform hiring from role development to onboarding and optimization? Check out the case study below to explore the Spark Hire difference.
