How To Raise Your Employment Offer Acceptance Rates With Kindness

by Robert Sher

Finding the best candidates in a hyper competitive market is challenging enough. But once you have made your choice, how do you make sure top talent accepts your offer?

All too often, candidates make it all the way through the hiring process, receive a solid offer and then reject it. Worse yet, they accept an offer, then rescind it. Companies are then compelled to take a second choice candidate, or start the recruiting process all over again. Top candidates, and months of effort and resources, can be lost.

This difficultly highlights the importance of building relationships within the recruitment process. Rather than keeping candidates at a distance and leaving them on their own to reach their final decision, a more comprehensive approach to establishing a rapport and building personal connections with candidates throughout the process can make the difference between a successful hire and another one that got away.

All You Need Is Love. The issue is illustrated in the way many companies choose not to press too hard when it comes to a candidate’s choice to sign on. They don’t want to seem desperate. They also don’t want to push for a reluctant candidate to join when their heart isn’t really into it, then have retention or performance problems later.

As a result, they allow candidates to make the final decision on their own. They assume all questions have been answered and all doubts addressed through the interview process. Last communications are often left to HR or an external recruiter to close the negotiations and ensure the employment offer is accepted. This may allow candidates to have last-minute doubts they cannot resolve, and to potentially decline the offer.

Instead, overwhelm them with kind, individualized attention. Take a decision that recruitment is about relationship building right from the start. This should improve both your decision making and your success rate.

One company that has achieved excellent results with this approach is San Francisco-based Fireclay Tile. Fireclay makes sure candidates are interviewed by at least four people – bosses and HR but also peers so that connections are created at several levels within the company. They use the interview process to start building personal relations and a sense of community from the start. And once an offer letter has gone out, they follow up with friendly communications from the entire hiring group to congratulate and welcome the prospective, answer any outstanding questions and demonstrate how eager they are for them to join.

“Once we’ve extended an offer, we ask our entire hiring team to reach out and say, ‘Congratulations,’” explains Eric Edelson, Fireclay CEO. “We ask them all to say, ‘Hey, we love you, we want you to join us’ – really pour on the kindness.” In many cases, says Edelson, the feedback is, “That was an incredible process. I can’t believe how personal it was. I feel like I got to understand the company and really understand the job.” And that, usually, helps ensure they come on board.

Rolling Out the Welcome Wagon. In establishing a relationship-building approach to recruitment, here are some key steps:

1. Be genuine about seeking the best fit for the candidate/company. This is an attitude. It isn’t about “selling” the candidate (i.e., win-lose) but insuring the right choice for all parties. This positions the firm as committed only to win-win. It may take some training of the team and will require acknowledging areas of mis-fit or downsides of the company. This approach may put some candidates off who don’t fit. But it will build trust among those really interested in the company and should increase the yes rate among those who reach the final stages.
2. Team/multiple interviews. The technique only works if a start on building relationships is made during the interviews. Ensure that a mix of personnel are involved in interviews, from different levels in the company. Be aware that silent types in interviews don’t create relationships, so be thoughtful about who plays which roles. Maybe the quiet peer takes them on a tour of the office. Assign questions so issues are not missed, and a detailed guide on interview techniques should be standard.
3. Have strong screening processes. Take steps to make sure you’re not wasting people’s time on group interviews of obviously poor candidates. A relationship focused hiring approach takes a bit of extra effort and commitment. You want to be sure the process is as efficient and streamlined as possible, so your team invests their time only in qualified candidates.
4. As soon as the offer letter goes out, have the team jump into action. Once a decision has been made, that’s when the connections you started to build come into play. Each member of the hiring team is tasked to reach out to congratulate the successful candidate and offer support in making their decision. It means four or more people taking, say, a twenty minutes for a phone call, to make the recruit feel that they are loved, and that all of their questions and concerns have been addressed. This will make them feel they are already part of the community – and offset feelings of regret in abandoning friends at their current job.
5. Continue the outreach until they show up for work. Don’t be intrusive, but also don’t leave it to chance. The process of relationship building should continue right up until the new employee shows up for work, and even then, the sense of community should be nurtured through a modern, fulsome onboarding program. The investment of time and effort put in on the front end will be repaid with strong recruitments and productive new team members from the start.

“It’s a big decision for candidates to make – to leave their current job and join us,” notes Edelson. “We’ve all been there and know what it’s like. So, we just try to ask how we can be helpful, how we can help them figure everything out. And we try to make sure they know we want them on our team.”

Going the Extra Mile. The relationship-building approach may be met with some common objections from the team, but the time and effort can really pay off.

1. Why would we want candidates who need so much handholding to sign? Of course, people who are fleeing their current job don’t need hand holding.  But often the best candidates are high performers, as in the example above, who like their jobs and are cherished by their current bosses. These people have a lot to lose by jumping to your firm. The objective in fact should be to go after the best people, those who want to move from a good to a great place, and they must have their hand held!
2. Our people are too busy to interview, much less to go into candidate “sales”. This is probably true. But if you allow your people always to prioritize keeping up with the current workload, you are deprioritizing growth. Hiring new talent is a growth move, and isn’t that something you are keen to achieve?
3. The people on our team are introverted, so they just don’t do peppy outreach. Many recruits we covet are not extroverts. They appreciate all types of people, and sometimes the outreach of a quiet person is what makes the difference. Whether by phone, email or text, two-way communication is the most powerful, however, quiet types may have to push themselves a bit. Alternatively, you can leave them out of the interview process, or put them in an outer circle of interviewers, to listen and not be part of the welcome-wagon process. In any case, HR should keep tabs on the outreach, to make sure everyone follows up and does their part.

Aim to Be Awesome. Especially where talented people are moving horizontally, this personal touch can make all the difference, including with speculative candidates. Edelson tells the story of a recent hire who was working at a big rival PLC. She was happily employed, but applied somewhat casually, since Fireclay has a lot of buzz around it. As it turned out, says Edelson, “She had a fantastic interview process, talked to a lot of people, loved the brand, loved the perception, loved the things our customers were saying. At the end, we sent in a very thoughtful offer to her and we all called her and congratulated her, sent her emails, overwhelmed her with kindness. And she accepted!

“I think we are doing a good job because we have tons of people who want to work at Fireclay, and every month we’re getting better and better candidates,” says Edelson. “What we like to hear, at the end of the process, is our new employee saying, ‘You guys have been awesome throughout this. Everyone’s been so friendly and helpful. I have all my questions answered and I’m excited to sign the papers.’ That’s the ultimate goal.”

To read an extract of the interview transcript, please click here.

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