An Offer Letter is the End of a Hiring Process, Not a Big Event

A while back I was working with a hiring manager to recruit an executive. After a very long process meeting with several candidates, we were ready to pull the trigger on one candidate who we agreed was a great fit for the position. By this point, we’d discussed everything from the candidate’s hopes and dreams to compensation, and all parties were completely aligned on the terms of a potential offer. I advised the hiring manager to send over their offer letter—with a 48-hour expiration. They were shocked! They thought it was such a short turnaround to expect such a big decision—but was it really? Didn’t the candidate’s decision to join become clear through all that discussion that had already taken place?

In the world of executive search, a job offer should never be a surprise. If you are doing your job right not a single part of an offer letter should be unexpected. The conversations you’ve had with your candidate have been a progressive, step-by-step approach to hiring that led both you and the candidate to this point. A job offer is simply a conclusion to a very thought-out and intentional process.

An Offer Letter is No Big Deal, Really

I repeat: A job offer is not a special event. The conversations you’ve had with the candidate have led you to this. Your candidate understands the cost of living in the area that they are relocating to. They understand things like the housing market, where the good schools are, if there is a local place of worship they would like to go to. Only 62% of companies offer a relocation package; is the company they are going to work for one of them? If not, are they okay with footing the bill, or conversely if a relocation package is offered, is it enough to facilitate a move? These are all some of the things that need to be out in the open with your candidate fully onboard long before you send an offer letter.

Get Complete Compensation Clarity Before Making Your Offer

If you’ve done the hiring process right, you’ve also talked about things like the compensation package, including signing bonuses and recouping lost year-end bonuses if your candidate is starting out before the end of the year. Salary absolutely needs to be made clear before an offer is made, so that when the offer is finally presented there isn’t any new and shocking information. It’s downright baffling to me that some companies would want to keep this secret and save as some sort of “big reveal.” Frankly, hiring managers who do this are shooting themselves in the foot. Of the people who relocate to take a new job 50.3% of them do so for either career advancement or more money. That means that in addition to the challenge your job is presenting a candidate, they’re likely looking for a more secure financial future. A candidate is only going to accept a job that is a good fit for their goals, and keeping compensation a mystery is one big way to lose a candidate after you make your offer—which should not be happening.

Don’t Forget the Little Things

Okay. Now that these topics have been covered with your candidate you might be feeling really good about filling this position. But before you pull the trigger, there are still more things you need to cover with the candidate. You’ve covered everything you can control up to this point, but now you need to figure out what external factors might be in play. Ask: Has anything changed since we last talked? Has a tree fallen through your roof, making it exponentially harder to sell your home? Has your spouse gotten a promotion, or has your kid just made the varsity team? Are you moving to a landlocked area, but love boating? These are all examples of questions nobody would think to ask, but it’s absolutely imperative to know the answers because you don’t want to offer a candidate a job, after spending countless hours vetting and talking with hiring managers to get the go ahead, only to find out some seemingly trivial thing is holding them back from taking the job.

And if you don’t believe these seemingly small matters are enough to derail an otherwise solid hiring deal, have I got a story for you. A while back Highline’s VP of Search, Mike, was all set and ready to go with a candidate. He’d had every conversation and I’d asked every possible question he could think of in order to make sure this hire would go through. The hiring manager loved the candidate, and the candidate was ready to take the job. Or so we thought. When it came down to moving the candidate’s physical property, we hit a big snag. See, he owned a Civil War-era chess set worth something like a million dollars. The movers wouldn’t pay the $15,000 insurance premium they’d need to move it, and he didn’t want to take that risk on himself. This turned out to be a big sticking point and the candidate almost didn’t take the job because of it. Now, we make it a point to ask about antiques and other valuables just to make sure this won’t happen again.

Time to pull the trigger

Here’s what it all comes down to: The hiring process is all about removing mystery. From the beginning of the process, I have walked through as many questions and discussions as it takes with the candidate to understand who they are and what makes them tick. I have walked them through everything from how to have a successful job interview to how to handle a counteroffer.  We’ve gone through every expectation they should have of the job and what the job will have of them. They know exactly what their compensation is going to be. When it’s time for them to read their offer letter, the 48-hour deadline shouldn’t be a problem. At this point the candidate will be able to confirm that the letter captured the preceding conversation and agree. And then all I have to do is call the company and say, “Yup, we’re ready to go.” This is important because at this point the company that’s doing the hiring has put in a tremendous amount of time, between interviews, offers, and negotiations amongst other things. It’s a lot of work to land top talent, but that work needs to happen before an offer is made, not after. This part, the part that so many mistake as a big deal, is actually very easy because every single minute detail has been thought of to ensure not just that the candidate matches the job, but also that the job matches the candidate.  

—Tony O’Neill, President

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