Best Practices When Making an Offer to a Candidate

Best Practices When Making an Offer to a Candidate

Don’t make a mistake now!  You are so close to a YES!

Making an offer often seems like a formality to many companies.  They have done all the hard lifting and found a great candidate. Historically, a short phone call telling them an offer is coming by email has worked because “the candidate is so lucky to get a job offer from our company! Of course they will take it!”   

However, the world has changed. The way you offer is critically important not only to you getting the candidate you want, but to ensure a great beginning to their work days with you. 

Call the candidate with excitement!

The hiring manager (or CEO if appropriate) needs to call the candidate with excitement! This is the moment that the candidate has been waiting for, and it's important to create a positive and enthusiastic experience for them. By conveying your excitement and interest in the candidate, you are more likely to create a positive impression and increase the likelihood of acceptance.  

Say something like this:

“Emily, we are so excited to offer you the position of senior accountant. We have looked at over 130 resumes and interviewed many candidates for this position. We spent days figuring out exactly what we needed in this job, and then we found you.  We believe that you will be not only exactly what we were looking for skill wise - but your attitude and energy are just what will make you a great fit.  We will follow up today with an offer in writing but we really hope you will say yes!”

Put an offer in writing that same day

The offer should come on the same day and preferably within an hour of the phone call (not before the phone call - that is not recommended at all!). This provides the candidate with the necessary details regarding the offer, such as salary, benefits, start date, and other relevant information. This also shows the candidate that you are organized, professional, and value their time.

Meet or exceed their salary expectations

Don't offer less than they thought was coming. If you have discussed salary expectations with the candidate or posted a range, it's important to ensure that the offer meets or exceeds their expectations. Offering less than what they anticipated can create a negative impression and may cause the candidate to reconsider their interest in the position.  Even if they take the job at the lesser rate, you have communicated to them that they weren’t even good enough for the lower end of the range and you will be starting off poorly.  If you don’t give them the highest end of the range, you will need to explain why they aren’t good enough for that, and again this may not sit well with them. It’s better to make them excited with the salary - this is not the economy for a salary negotiation.  Candidates don’t want to engage like that anymore.  So give them a fair, expected salary.

Keep communicating!

If there is much time between offer acceptance and start, continue to communicate with the candidate. This can include sending them a company t-shirt, newsletter, or welcome emails from staff. This helps to keep the candidate engaged and excited about the opportunity to work with your organization and may squash any other offers that may be coming in behind yours.  Surprise and delight them with gifts, communication, excitement from current team members, etc.  It doesn’t cost much - but is important if there is more than a couple of weeks prior to their start date. 

In summary, these 4 simple actions can make a HUGE difference in the result.  As you look back at your last hire - is there any improvement you need to make?  It sounds like FLUFF and unimportant - but the result of not doing these things might mean starting the recruiting process all over again when your candidate starts with another company.  Let’s not let that happen.

As always, we would love to talk to you about your hiring process. We coach our clients through every step when we work with them in recruiting.  It’s just part of what we do and why our clients like to work with us! Our survey scores are 5 out of 5 on the client and candidate side. We know that sounds like bragging, and it is. Hiring and HR is what we do best!

Onsite Interview Guide for Employers: Preparation for the Candidate

“Don’t blow it!!” - That’s what we want CEOs or whoever the hiring manager is in your small business to know.  

It takes so much of your time/resources to get a great candidate to be interested in your position - the average survey says it takes 40-80 hours of work to find a good candidate. So, don’t blow it when you get the opportunity to interview.

If you are spending so much time getting a great candidate to the interview stage, let’s figure out how to keep them engaged! 

Here are some tips and tricks we have learned over the last 29 years as you set up their interview experience (if you are more interested in Matt Filer and I discussing on the HR Ins and Outs for Small Business Podcast, here is the link to the podcast):

Tip #1 - Let the Candidate Know What to Expect

No one wants a surprise. No one wants to wait around and wonder what comes next.  So, tell your candidates at the very beginning of the process what is likely to happen. This can help to alleviate any anxiety they may have and ensure that they are well-prepared. Send an email saying something like:

“Dear Sue, We are very excited to have you entering the interview process for the Accounting Manager position.  We will begin with a video interview on ______. This will be 30 minutes and will be with the hiring manager, ____________.  Next, we will be sending a personality assessment to you. This will take 15 minutes of your time and we will send you the results as well.  Then, the on-site interviews will happen over 3 hours in one day and the candidates will meet with 3 of our other managers, __________________.  We hope to make a hiring decision by July 1.   If you will not be advancing to the next stage in the process we will let you know in a timely manner.  Let’s get started.  We look forward to getting to know you.” - You have our permission to copy and paste. 

Tip #2 - Get the Logistics Right

Ensure that parking, reception, and other logistics are in order. This will help to create a smooth and seamless experience for the candidate, and also ensure that they arrive at the interview feeling relaxed and focused. Here are some examples:

• If there are multiple parking lots, send a map showing which one to use. If the front door is confusing - spell it out in the directions.  

• If you have a receptionist, make sure he/she knows your candidate is coming, and exactly what to do when he/she arrives. Reception should know exactly what to say: “Glad you are here, Sue!  We have been expecting you. Take a seat right here and Don will be with you right at 9am!  We hope you have a good day.”

You would think this is self-explanatory. However, we hear from candidates all the time about how there was no direction and they did not know where to go.

Tip #3 - Don’t Overload the Candidate

As you plan the interview day, here are some tips:  

1. Plan on the interview being around 30-45 minutes. 

2. Plan on interviews never being more than a 3-1 ratio (interviewers to interviewee).  Large panel interviews just don’t work well and totally stress the candidate. We get the feedback that it feels like a firing squad when there are more than 3! 

3. Plan for a break with a snack or coffee if the person will have multiple interviews.  

Tip #4  - Be Prepared

We always tell the candidate to be prepared but the interviewer should be as well! Here are some easy items to check along the way:

1. Make sure you have reviewed the resume and highlight a couple of interesting things. 

2. Look at their LinkedIn to see what you might have in common. 

3. Have 2-3 questions written about their background and 2-3 more questions to help you determine culture fit and skills fit!  

It will speak volumes to the candidate that you are a quality employer if you have taken the time in advance to research them.  What do you think when you walk into the interview as a candidate and the interviewer obviously is looking at your resume for the first time - it is disappointing for sure!

We get it - hiring isn’t much fun.  No one loves it.  But your outcome can be much better if you do these things in advance!!

If you want to go more into depth about this subject, listen to our podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts:

Link to Spotify Podcast

Link to Apple Podcast

Unpopular Opinion: Why Right Now is the Best Time to Hire

Unpopular Opinion: Why Right Now is the Best Time to Hire

You might not be thinking this, but right now is a great season to hire. Have you heard the phrase: "Buy when no one else is buying"? You might hear this in the stock market or real estate world, but it is also a good hiring mantra.  

Here are 5 reasons why you should be hiring right now:
1. This Economy: Many companies might be freezing hiring or spooked about the layoffs at big tech companies and what that means to the economy. The savvy small business CEO is going to know that this is a rare opportunity to pick up "A+ Players" for their organization. If you start to hire now, your candidate pool will be larger than when the markets start to go back up (which we all know it will). If your company had a great year or this small recession is not affecting you, we recommend hiring now!

2. Concern About Current Employer: Many employees are getting concerned about the profitability of their current organization. If you are stable and growing, you will be able to attract candidates that may not have been looking for a new role before now.

3. Less Competition for Talent: Less employers hiring generally means more favorable outcomes in quality and salary (something that was far from the case in 2022). In a time when hiring is slowing across the country, it is easier to find "A+ Players" that are willing to make a move. If you wait until conditions improve, you may have missed this unique opportunity that your competition is not taking advantage of.

4. The Right Time of the Year: On the candidate side, employees have time off around this time of the year. This means they are on their computers taking time to look for something new. Statistics show that when employees have down time, they often spend it wishing and searching for new situations. On the employer side, less companies start recruiting at the holidays because they want to “hire at the beginning of the fiscal year”. In January, the market will be flooded with work and your job will just be one of many when it could stick out now.

5. Put Employees on Innovative Outsourcing's Payroll: We can put your employees on our payroll. This is a no-risk approach to hiring. For both part-time and full-time positions, we can keep W-2 employees on our payroll for as long as you like.

Thinking of Hiring a Virtual Executive Assistant?

Consider Hiring Laura!

Ever wish you had an extra set of hands?  If yes, Laura could be the extra resource you need! 

• 9 years’ experience

• Project management

• Event planning

• Social media management

• Appointment setting

• Executive assistant support

• Detail oriented

• Skilled at meeting deadlines

• Delightful at handling tasks with perfection

Laura is a flexible “jack of all trades” who loves to help those she supports be successful. She has recently spent 7 years working with a large employer in the Marietta area, with the last 4 years providing project and admin support to the CEO and EVP of Sales.

• Work preferences: Laura is currently looking for a remote opportunity, working 10+ hours per week.

• Pay rate preferences: Her rate is in the $25-30/hour range, not including IO fees.

And remember that IO takes the risk out of hiring by offering you the choice to hire directly or to keep an employee on the IO payroll. Let us eliminate your hiring risk! We pay the insurances and employer taxes. This is a huge benefit of using Innovative Outsourcing for your flexible staffing needs.

If you’re interested in exploring all the ways a great employee like Laura could be an asset to you and your team, CLICK HERE to learn more about the tasks a virtual assistant can handle.

To start the conversation about how Laura might be a perfect fit for your company, contact Sue Blanchet at sblanchet@innovative-outsourcing.com.

Don't delay, as Laura is a candidate that will be placed quickly.

Interview Prep Isn't Just For Job Applicants

Everyone knows the importance of being well-prepared for an interview with a potential employer. However, how much do YOU prepare before you are interviewing candidates for a new position in YOUR organization? There are several things you can do that will help to ensure that you have productive meetings with your candidates, and you can ensure that you are not exposing yourself to any unnecessary legal risk. 
 
Over the next several weeks, we will be reviewing some important elements of an effective interviewing process. Many of these reminders come from feedback from our candidates after returning from interviews. Just a few extra minutes on the front end and a few minor changes can help to ensure that you are putting your best foot forward and that you select a person who will be a great addition to your team.
 
We believe reading through these tips will be helpful as you grow, and you can always keep them on file to review again before your next search process begins.
 
Today's Interview Element: Determine WHO You Want To Hire
 
We know this sounds elementary. Of course, you have thought about the skills and experience you need for the open position in your company. However, there are some extra steps you can take that will make a huge difference in the success of your hiring efforts.

Write a good job description.  Having a specific and thorough outline of what a candidate will do on the job makes it easier to assess an applicant’s previous experience and skills and how they line up with what you need. Make sure you list your “must-haves” and your “nice-to-haves.” Some things are essential in order for a new employee to be able to hit the ground running while others can be trained.

Know the intangibles that you need/want.  As you have probably learned the hard way over the years, skills do not typically cause an employee to fail in a position. However, it is more typically issues related to work ethic, personality match, being a team player, etc. Ask yourself these questions, as the answers will lead to a great hire. 

• “What makes a person successful in this role?”

• “What type of behaviors/ attitudes make a person a great member of my team?”

• “Who on my team would I like to clone and what is it about them that makes them so valuable to me?”

Write down some specific questions.  Based on your must-have skills/experience and the answers to your intangible questions, write down some specific questions that you will ask each candidate. It’s okay to move off-script and go with the flow of the conversation, of course. But by making sure you ask each candidate 10 or so of the same questions, it will make it a lot easier for you to do your evaluations once the interviews are over.
 
Behavioral Interviewing Questions are one of the best ways to get to those “intangibles” that you are looking for in your next hire.  Stay tuned for some easy ways to implement those in our next post!

Advice from a sage businessman

This is Alan Ketzes. Alan is a chair at Vistage International with the role of business coach to over 60 CEOs in the Metro Atlanta area. He thrives on bringing executives together through peer groups, giving one-on-one coaching, and has driven many executives and their businesses to new heights. 

In this 2 1/2 minute video, Alan offers a time-saving suggestion that he gives to his clients, and he believes this can help your business as well. We personally loved his answer and hopefully you will, too. Enjoy Alan Ketzes! 

https://youtu.be/rtwLe6pVsko

Selecting the Best Interview Questions

I am often asked to suggest good interview strategies. What questions are the best? To help you make the most of the interview experience, consider using some of my favorite questions:

QUESTION: Tell me about a situation in a past job or organization where you encountered some conflict, and how did you address or handle it?

This question reveals these important indicators: 

• This is a fairly complex question. Can the candidate recall a situation on the fly, and then provide a cohesive answer? Their response helps me understand if they can think on their feet, can handle something quickly, can determine a good answer, and then deliver a well-considered reply.  
• How they have handled conflict in the past is a predictor of how they will handle it in the future. If they answer that it was all the fault of the other person, and the supervisor had to handle it, or the candidate simply left the company, that is probably not a good response. If their answer includes how they addressed the conflict directly with the person and talked it out with them, meeting halfway to handle the situation, that is the preferred response.
• If they say they have never had a job with any conflict, that is a big red flag. This candidate is either not truthful or they can’t think on their feet.

QUESTION: At XYZ company, we value helping fellow employees and we are FOR each other. When in a previous position, have you been able to help a coworker get recognized for something they have done or help them achieve success?

Here’s what I am looking for here:

• This is a good one to figure out if they are FOR other people or FOR themselves. To me, this is a significant factor in evaluating a candidate. If they can never remember a time that they helped a peer, then you don’t want them on your team.
• This might give the candidate a glimpse into who you are as a future employer. They may not believe in this value. They may be such a self-centered driver that it is all about them. In this case, your environment would not be good for them, and they might self-select out. 

QUESTION: What is one thing that you would like to be better at in five years?

Look for these things:

• I like someone to be self-aware. Do they know where their weaknesses are, and are they willing to share one with you?  If they answer this quickly, that’s a good indicator. If they don’t, that means that they haven’t thought about this lately and are not trying to self-improve. Ask me this question right now, and I have a list of five things in my head that I am trying to improve upon. That is what you would like to see.
• I am looking for a humble employee. If they are open to share their developmental issues with you, then they are likely humble and this could signify a good candidate.  

Searching for more questions?  Here are 30 you may also want to consider.

When you work with Innovative Outsourcing, we provide you with the finest candidates. Work with us for your next open position. Our outreach identifies the best candidates, and then we use personality testing, phone screening, and in-person interviews to select the best two candidates for your review. Then, we schedule the interviews, and you simply ask some of these good questions.  It’s easy when you let us help!

Speed-hiring in today's job market

Does this hiring scenario sound familiar?

"Our company needs a part-time executive assistant:
        7 days = candidate search
        5 days = find time to act on this and conduct interviews
        5 days = waiting until CEO can meet top candidates
        2 days = discuss and decide, offer Candidate A the job
But Candidate A just accepted another job.  So we offer Candidate B the position, only to find that she has been snapped up by another company, as well. Almost three weeks have passed, and we are back to square-one in the hiring process."

Wait... wasn't it just yesterday that you and I were learning the technique of hire slow and fire fast?  Yes, I even spoke on that very topic to CEO groups when this was the “winning” equation. But it seems that times are changing.This is a CANDIDATE market. 

In many job categories, we are seeing a shortage of great candidates.  This means that to “win” the best ones, we all need to take a look at shortening our hiring timeline.  Never before has a "hurry-up offense" been such a determining factor in filling a vacancy with the very best person. USA Today recently reported, "Employers who took their sweet time making hiring decisions just a few years ago, are scrambling to snag candidates in as little as a day for fear of losing them to competitors in a tight labor market.” (Read that article. It's an eye-opener!)

What does it mean to quicken the pace of hiring? No, don't skip steps. You need to still run background checks, reference checks (in detail), do personality profiles, and hold multiple interviews.  But the time between these steps must be compressed. Here's how:

• Conduct interviews as soon as candidates are pre-screened. Don't wait a week, opening the window for a competing job to grab their attention.
• Get back to the candidate within 24 hours. Normally you know within the first five minutes if this could be the right person for the job.
• Need a second set of interviews? Complete that within the next 48 hours.
• Now tell your top candidate that you are going to make an offer in three days while you await the results of the background and reference checks. 
• Then send a job offer in writing AFTER making a verbal offer either in person or by phone. 

"But I don't have time for this right now." If you don’t have time for interviews, for follow-ups, and to make a decision, then this is not the time to hire.  

"Help! I have a business to run, too." A hiring company like Innovative Outsourcing is skilled to help with most of the heavy lifting.

Take advantage of a good staffing firm who will perform 40 to 80 hours of the hiring homework for you. Then all you need to do is set aside time for interviews immediately when candidates become available.  Next, make a decision within one or two days. Otherwise, the BEST candidates will accept other positions with companies who act faster.  While your vacancy will eventually be filled, are you really willing to settle for a second-tier candidate because you unintentionally delayed the process?  

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and how Innovative Outsourcing can help you adjust to this hurry-up hiring strategy.  I'm now dedicating resources to identify the very best candidates, and prequalify them so we are way ahead in the pre-screening process.  When you call on us looking for a specific type of person to fill a vacancy, we are ready to go with an inventory of awesome candidates ready to meet you. 

The Interview Question You Need to Ask

There are numerous questions asked during job interviews. The standard “tell me about yourself” or “why should I hire you?” questions get asked hundreds of times. Sure, they give you some insight into who the candidate is. But there’s one interview question you probably aren’t asking that you should be.

Why shouldn’t I hire you?

Look for the way the candidate answers this question. Are they honest about it? How do they handle themselves? You want a candidate that is both truthful and humble about their answer. You want someone that’s authentic, and this question will give you the insight you’re looking for.

Rather than asking “what’s your biggest weakness?” and hearing the same answers we’ve all heard (“being too dedicated” or “procrastinating, but getting it done in the final minute”), this is a great alternate. Consider closing out the interview with this question. Does the candidate have the qualities you’re looking for and value as a company?

Depending on the job you are hiring for, you’ll want to ask certain “standard” interview questions. You may also want to ask some that are way out of the box, just to get to know who the candidate is. But this is one question that applies to almost every job, and we think it’s one that you should be asking every candidate.

We’d love to hear from you - What’s your favorite question to ask in an interview?