Hiring can be one of the more stressful aspects of a business. Why? Well, when you have an open position, it means you aren’t able to deliver at your full potential. It also means you’re likely losing customers and potential income.
In addition, trying to find the right candidate can be quite difficult at times. Sometimes there are only a few applicants and other times the ones who do apply aren’t what you need. Then, just when you think you’ve found the ideal candidate, you’re somehow unable to close them. The person declines your offer or chooses to go with another company. Now you must start the interview and hiring process all over again.
Luckily, we have a solution that’ll help you close your ideal candidate and almost guarantee you’ll get a “yes” every time you make an offer. In fact, this is the ONLY way to make an offer to a job applicant!
Decide Who You Want to Hire
The first step is deciding who you want to hire. You may think this is a given, but it’s not. You need to make the decision you are going to hire a person. If you aren’t 100 percent sure, or you are just settling for someone who “might be able to do the job”, you are going to waste your time. Until you’ve made the decision to hire someone, do not proceed any further in the hiring process.
Move Fast as Speed Is of the Essence in Hiring
Once you have made the decision to hire someone, you need to move fast. Speed is of the essence in hiring. Because, let’s face it, if you want to hire a person you’ve interviewed, it is very likely others want to hire that person too. So, you’ll need to move forward quickly with putting together your offer, negotiating terms and getting them to accept.
Taking your time could result in you losing the applicant to another company. In all honesty, if you aren’t ready to move with haste to secure your ideal candidate, then you really need to look at whether you are fully committed to hiring this person to fill your open position.
Don’t Go from Interview Straight to Written Offer
Many employers have gotten in the habit of sending an offer to a job applicant shortly after they’ve completed the final job interview. Then, they’re surprised when the candidate declines the offer and moves on to another opportunity.
The problem is they are missing the KEY step that will pretty much guarantee the applicant will accept their offer. This step is discussing the proposed offer, and negotiating its terms, with the candidate before putting together an official, written offer. This discussion can take place in person or over the phone, but it must take place.
This step is what can make or break your hiring process. Employers who have high success rates when it comes to closing candidates don’t necessarily pay a lot more, nor do they always offer tons of benefits. What they do is they take the time to discuss all aspects of the offer with the applicant. They go back and forth talking about what the applicant needs and wants, discussing money, benefits, schedule, continued education and more. Each point of the offer must be reviewed with the applicant and the two parties need to come to an agreement before moving on to the next point. Failing to do this puts you at risk for losing your ideal candidate and thus all your hard work would go to waste.
Make Your Applicant Comfortable Enough to Speak Their Mind
While you are going over your offer with your potential candidate, you need to make them feel comfortable enough to speak their mind. You can’t assume you know what they want or what is most important to them. Yes, money is a key selling point to most applicants, but the person in front of you may be more interested in their schedule or access to continued education or the benefits they will receive. If you don’t make them comfortable enough to speak up and share what they want, then they’ll likely decline your offer because it doesn’t meet their needs.
Be open. Let them know you want to work with them. Make your intentions clear, so they know how much you want to hire them and that you really want to work out an offer to suit you both. Once they open up to you, you’ll be able to hash things out and come up with the ideal offer.
Send a Written Offer Only Once Both Parties Agree to the Terms
Once both parties have agreed to the terms of the offer, write it all up and send it over to the applicant for them to review and sign. Since you’ve already discussed the terms, and agreed upon everything included in the offer, this step is simply done to have a written agreement between both sides.
That’s all an offer should be. It’s a written document laying out what the two of you verbally agreed to earlier. If you can’t come to a verbal agreement, then don’t bother putting together a written offer. Thank the person and move on.
Neglecting to Follow These Steps Is a Waste of Everyone’s Time
Putting together an offer is a process. It’s not a one and done. You can’t send a cookie cutter offer to an applicant and expect them to agree to it. You need to take the time to discuss what the candidate wants, what they need, what you need, what you expect and more. You need to follow these steps or else you are just wasting their time and yours.
Make Job Offers in This Way and You’re Guaranteed to Get a Yes
If you are serious about hiring, then you need to make job offers in this way because by doing so, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get a “yes” every time. There’s no trick to it. There’s no secret equation only certain employers know. It’s simply opening up and discussing your proposed offer with your applicant until the two of you can come to an agreement. Then, and only then, do you send the offer in writing. Doing this style of closing is far more effective than any other. Try it and you’ll see.
For more than two decades, The People Link has been dedicated to helping companies fulfill their hiring needs. Our focus is on finding qualified applicants to fill open positions, in both the Dental and Allied Healthcare industries, to the benefit of all. We have an extremely high success rate and we look forward to doing what we can to help get your open positions filled.
To inquire about our employer services and learn more about how we can help you with your hiring needs, visit The People Link online or call Mya directly at 818-890-9998.