How to ensure a candidate accepts your job offer
With the rapid economic development in China, there are plenty of opportunities in the market from both multinational corporations and uprising domestic enterprises. Bi-lingual candidates with knowledge and experience working in Western market are in high demand – it is truly a candidate-driven market. Unfortunately, offer rejection is commonly seen in recruitment in the Chinese legal market.
The reasons for offers rejections are roughly divided into these categories:
- salary does not meet expectations
- limited promotional opportunity
- offer from other companies or counter offer from current company
- hiring cycle is too lengthy
After understanding the reason(s), we can work on them one by one and try to prevent the offer rejection from occurring in the first place. Here are some tried-and-true best practices can help to prevent or mitigate this.
Be Creative in Your Compensation
Talk candidly with the candidates about what they are looking for. Salary is important to everyone, but there are many other factors that are of equal importance, such as location, job stability, affordable benefits, and work life balance/family friendly culture. Find out the candidate’s primary motivations, by doing so we can understand how to make the most attractive offer. When you can’t offer a high starting salary consider other financial incentives, such as stock options, profit sharing and signing bonuses. Moreover, consider offering non-financial benefits, for example, home base plan or flexible working hours; paying for their training and/or professional development; providing more annual leave or holding family events in the company.
Create a Bright Future
Ask good questions about what the candidate is seeking in a position, everything from what type of management they would like to work under; what is their career plan for next five to ten years; what kind of achievement they hope to get in this position. It is perfect if a clear promotion scheme is provided, if not we can provide other plans to present a bright future, such as: access to more senior projects; access to a mentoring program; internal rotations to provide wider exposure; an international move to another office.
Face the Challenge from other Offers
Before entering negotiations, get the lowdown on ongoing salary trends. Any offer you make should be fair to the candidate and in line with the standards of your industry and your company. Your recruitment partners may conduct regular salary surveys. Get a handle on what similar companies are offering in terms of salary and benefits, and then make a competitive offer.
Preventing a counter offer on the other hand is a different story. You should ask the candidate their reason for leaving their current company. Once the candidate does give you the green light to offer, walk the candidate through a potential counter offer scenario. Remind them their reason of leaving, make sure they are aware of the problems that the current company can’t resolve, but you can offer.
Act Quickly
Last but not least, close the deal fast! Any delay in making an offer can cause you to lose the best applicant. A speedy job offer demonstrates your desire to have this person join your company. It shows you think quickly and respect the candidate’s time. Long, drawn-out recruiting, on the other hand, may give a candidate the impression that you’re unable to make up your mind. That’s not the type of organization someone wants to join.
To sum up, it’s important to communicate clearly with the candidates at every stage of recruitment process. Remember we are handling with people, and people are changing all the time. You need to do your best to make sure you know about what is going on with the candidates. Timely communication with candidates is difficult for HR – that is why a professional recruitment consultant plays a very important role in the recruitment.