• 
• Training
• Consulting
• Resources
• Events
• About Us
• Store

• » Articles
• › The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent
• › Newsletters

The Science of Recruiting - Part 10: Closing and Negotiating Offers - Advanced

By Lou Adler, March 5, 2004

Sometimes candidates say no. Sometimes they say it when you first call. This isn't so bad. When they say it when you're just about to make an offer, or have already made the offer, it is really bad. But don't lose total hope; there are still some things you can do to try to recover from this fateful event. The Science of Recruiting is, after-all, built on sound principles to guide the recruiter through the landmines and pitfalls of hiring top people.

Read more articles by this author.

Related Topics:

The Science of Recruiting, Negotiating, Recruiting

Related Articles:

The Science of Recruiting - Part 9: Negotiating and Closing Offers - The Set Up

The Science of Recruiting - Part 8: Influencing Hiring Managers - The Hiring Decision

The Science of Recruiting - Part 7: Influencing Hiring Managers: How You Present Candidates Matters

The recruiter's job is to ask enough questions to understand the candidate's reluctance, persuade the candidate to keep an open mind while you get the proof needed, and then convince the candidate to proceed based on this information. Collectively this is the real science of recruiting.

In earlier articles in this Science of Recruiting series we described how to handle early concerns. The key to most of them is to make sure that the candidate has enough information to proceed with the selection process. In some cases, the promise of getting more information is all that's required to move the candidate along. When you catalog all of the reasons why highly-qualified candidates opt-out of the hiring process, it's usually due to lack of the necessary information to move forward. The recruiter's job is to ask enough questions to understand the candidate's reluctance, persuade the candidate to keep an open mind while you get the proof needed, and then convince the candidate to proceed based on this information. Collectively this is the real science of recruiting.

The End Game - Getting the Candidate to Say Yes

Three recruiting techniques we discussed previously are worthy of mentioning briefly here. They're part of putting the final offer together and getting the candidate to accept the offer.

The first is uncovering objections. You must find out what is preventing the candidate from accepting an offer. You can do this a number of ways. The best is to just ask. You can also ask the candidate where he or she stands on a 1-10 scale, a 9 or 10 meaning the person is ready to accept an offer. If the candidate is somewhere between a six and eight, ask what it would take to get to a nine. It could be compensation, or a bigger job, or more information about the team, or a host of other items. Whatever it is though, it's your job to get more information to overcome it, or convince the candidate that the issue is not as important as he or she believes.

The second is closing upon an objection. Once you know the objection, find out if it's real. Ask the candidate if she's willing to accept an offer if that concern is met to her satisfaction. Try the trial close to pin the candidate down. This goes like this, "if I could meet your concern on that item, when would you be able to start?" If the candidate doesn't give you a start date or sounds evasive, that's not the real concern. Sometimes you have to cycle back a few times to find out the real concern and validate it this way.

The third closing technique is testing offers. Once you've uncovered all the concerns ask the candidate when they would formally accept an offer if the package could be put together later this week. If the person says she has to think about it, you've got more work to do. If you've addressed all of the candidate's concerns properly, candidates will enthusiastically tell you they're ready to accept, once they review the offer, and discuss it with close advisors. Any hesitation at this point is cause for concern. You're next step is to find out what it is.

Most often concerns at this late stage are due to the possibility of a counter-offer or a competitive offer from another company. Sometimes it's salary. My suggestion is to express your dismay directly, especially if you've handled all of the preliminary negotiations properly. Just say you're surprised that at this late date the candidate is reluctant to commit. Ask if it's due to salary or the possibility of a counter-offer, or some other offer. Here are some ideas you try out if it's any one these three issues.

The salary is not enough.

Find out what the competition is offering, or what the candidate thinks is fair. Then say something like this - I'm not sure we can get to that level, but if we could, would you then be willing to accept our offer? This is how you test the validity of the offer and the quality difference between two jobs. If the candidate hesitates to give you a start date or is evasive, something else is the problem.

If the salary demands are too high, you need to deflate them if you want to hire the candidate. Try asking: I'm not sure we can get to that level. A few of the other candidates we're also considering are making about 10-15% less than you are now and they're more open to the $ ____ to $ _____ range. So you're a little on the high side given the current market. Are you firm on that level? It could be a problem if you are.

Just so I'm perfectly clear, you are telling me that if we can't get to the $_____ level you are not interested in pursuing this position?

Salary is usually not the issue if the job offers significant stretch. If the person does have a competitive offer you'll need to determine if the other opportunity provides as much career growth as the position you're offering. If you've prepared a performance profile and established an opportunity gap as we discussed in earlier articles, this should not be a problem for you. By demonstrating that your spot offers more opportunity, you should be able to minimize a least 5-10% of any salary difference.

Addressing Counter-offers

If the person is even considering the possibility of a counter-offer you'll have to nip this in the bud. In this case the best defense is a good offense. The key is to bring the subject up if you sense the chance for a counter-offer exists.

Ask this to start the counter-offer conversation: How are you going to give your notice? Could you walk me through each stage of your resignation process? Then pause and let the candidate visualize giving her resignation.

If the person is evasive or vague, you should be concerned that the person has not fully accepted leaving her current position. You'll need to walk the person through the resignation process and tell them what to expect. Ask if the person wants you to prepare a resignation letter. Ask how the person's manager will react and suggest that she needs to say "not interested" when the idea of counter-offer is mentioned. Describe how to handle the pressure put on the candidate by her current company.
Creating guilt helps when trying to minimize counter-offers. Ask the candidate how she would feel if someone who worked for her accepted a counter-offer. Ask the person to justify the ethics of accepting a counter-offer. Your goal in this discussion is to paint a person who accepts a counter-offer as either misguided or unethical. You can't afford to lose a good candidate to a counter-offer, so you need to be direct.

In my opinion, accepting a counter-offer really is misguided and unethical. For one thing, it changes the basic relationship of the employee with the company and manager. For another, they often backfire. Everyone knows that a person who accepts a counter-offer is just as likely to leave as soon as their short-term needs are met, or when the existing problems crop up again. Also, people who accept counter-offers are subtly branded as less loyal, hurting their long term prospects. A Wall Street Journal article indicated that more than two-thirds of people who accepted counter-offers left their employers within a year. Make sure you tell this to your candidate. Counter-offers are risky business for everyone.

The Science of Recruiting

We've now come to the end of another journey. Based on the research we've conducted the quality of a company's recruiting team correlates directly with the quality of the candidates hired. Good recruiting is not about running ads, scheduling interviews, and updating the applicant tracking system. Good recruiting is about finding hard to find top candidates, convincing them to interview and stay involved throughout the selection process, influencing hiring managers to make offers, and getting these top people hired. Good recruiting doesn't stop when a person has accepted an offer. Good recruiters must make sure the person shows up. They stay actively involved until the person starts. This could be arranging a lunch for the new employee with the hiring manager, or a meeting to review the performance profile. Then to put icing on the cake, good recruiters will formally meet with the new employee soon after starting, and get the names of the best people the person has ever worked with. Good recruiters will then call and network with these people, and start filling more tough assignments with more top people. That's what good recruiters do. That's the science of recruiting.

Good Luck. Make some hiring managers famous. You'll know you've arrived when your client and candidates continually thank you for a job well done. You'll have earned it.