HR Services1

HR Services1

Saturday 23 February 2013

7 Tips to increase possibility of candidate joining after offer made to him


7 Tips to increase “Candidate’s joining conversion rate”


If you are in recruitment, you can understand the pain when candidate do not join on his date of joining even after accepting the offer letter. Recruiter need to face many problems in such cases. Some of the reasons are as below.

  • You need start the complete hiring process from Step 1.
  • Extra time in hiring means loss of productivity and money for company.
  • Huge pressure from hiring manager as his plan will fail, which was based on new candidate’s joining.
  • Other problems associated with low manpower in a project.
Above are enough reasons for you to find out ways to reduce such incidence and increase candidate’s joining conversion rate. Here are some tips which will help you to increase candidate’s joining conversion rate. 

Tips 1 # Do not hire candidate who change his job frequently.

Candidate, who has changed his job every year, is not stable regarding his job choice and career. His intention is to get an offer and then start looking for job in market once again for little more hike in his salary. Even if you offer such candidate, there is high possibility of candidate not joining as he might have many other offers like from your side. So better be away from such candidate. 

Tips 2 # Profile offered should be attractive to candidate

As recruiter, you need to ensure that profile, you are offering to candidate, should be attractive to candidate. I am not suggesting you to make a profile attractive (which you can’t), but finding candidate for whom, profile offer by you is attractive. Candidate should be interested and excited to take this up. Sometimes, candidates do take offer, even if, they are not very excited about profile you are offering as they may not have any job in hand. They will keep looking for profile they are interested in and take up such profile as soon they get one. Hence it is important that you should sense, whether profile you are offering is exciting to candidate or not? Candidate, do give weight-age to profile same as they give to pay package.

Tips 3 # Salary offered to candidate should be competitive

This is similar to earlier tip. If you do not offer salary to candidate which is higher than current pay package then why candidate will join you?. There are very few people who would like to join you on same salary especially when you don’t have brand value. Every candidate expect salary raise in new company. Candidate is not bothered about your budget. If you can’t offer candidate a hike, chance are, candidate might not join you. Candidate may choose offer which has higher salary pay package. Pay package is always a primary reason of leaving existing company and joining new company. I am not advising you to give whatever candidate expect, I am suggesting to give offer to candidate who is in your budget and you are giving logical hike to him.

Also don’t try to fool the candidate with higher CTC and lower in hand. Today candidates are smart, they know what they are looking forward for? They understand that company benefits are same for everyone hence they will surely insist on higher in hand salary.

Tips 4 # Sale positives of your company, project, profile for which you are hiring

Every company has good and bad things. As an employee, you know, what are these good things? Hence you need to sale all these to candidate. Tell candidate about various benefits your company gives. Talk about work culture, fun at work etc etc. Do not simply close the offer by offering a letter and salary to candidate. You take download from hiring manager about project and position to hire. You need to sale all positives of project and position to candidate. I would suggest, you guide hiring manager to speak with candidate and tell him about project he will be working on, what are the learning he will get, what are the growth chances etc. 
By doing so you are actually engaging the candidate with company before joining and it increases the chance of his joining.

Normally, HR does all this at the time of induction. I am suggesting do a small part of it while offering to potential candidate.

Tips 5 # Call Candidate for interview 2-3 times

Earlier, I use to believe in hiring on faster speed. Call the candidate one day and if you like offer and close. But gradually, I learnt, that candidates who were called more than 2 times for interview or discussions are more likely to join after offer made, especially when you are hiring executives and above. As per your company recruitment process, you can call them for some IQ test, EQ test, technical test, asking them to submit salary proof related documents other than interview related rounds. This doesn't mean you need to call them un-necessary for more than twice. Set a process. I would not suggest calling candidate more than 3 times also as candidate get frustrated.

Concept is simple here. Candidate who is really interested in joining your company will take pain to come 2-3 times and candidate who don’t want to join you, will make excuses. In any case you don’t want to offer a candidate (even if he is most suitable) if you know chance of his joining is very low.
This is useful tip. Do apply it and let me know any impact on your joining conversion

Tips 6 # Take resignation acceptance copy after offer made

After you make an offer to a candidate, you should ask him to submit copy of his resignation mail or letter and later acceptance of resignation to you. He should do that within 3-5 days of offer acceptance. With this, you can at least be sure that he has not been retained by his existing company. If you sense delay in submission of resignation acceptance then you should better start working on finding another candidate.

Tips 7 # Pre employment Verification

This tip is not directly related with candidate joining but more with his sustainability in company. Some company do post employment verification to check credentials of the employee and in case any credential is found negative then worst case, employee need to leave the company which means opening of close position. 

I advocate that pre employment verification should be done in place of post employment verification. You should inform candidate both verbal and written (Application form) that once you accept the offer and resign from current company, we will conduct verification and in case any negative fact is found that offer can be cancelled. 

This will ensure that you will not suffer from working on a close position again after some time

Conclusion

There could be more good practices which my fellow HR friends must be following. I would request them to share some good tips they have implemented which helped them to increase the joining conversion in their company. Even after all above, I would suggest that Recruiter should always keep a Back up Candidate ready as Plan B. Normally, we do not spend much time on finding a back up candidate as we assume that candidate offered by us will surely join. It is too optimistic. Plan B will surely help you.

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26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice. Very effective indeed.

Warm regards,
Sandeep Sengupta

Govind Singh Negi said...

Thanks Sandeep Da, your feedback appreciated.

Unknown said...

Very good tip added..

Unknown said...

I feel all your tips are very Useful. The Tips 5 # Call Candidate for interview 2-3 times - Its OK if the candidate is near by or maximum of 100 KM surroundings / Or as a Sales guy / or a guy without at that time. If he is working in a an Industry / or in company / or in corporate office - its my perception the he fees bad or the recruiter may loose a competitive guy. for instance A guy working in most southern part of India - say for example In Coimbatore / Trichy / Tirunelveli / palagat / tiussur gets an Interview in North or North west part of India say for example in Delhi / Noida / Gurgoan / Mumbai / Pune / Ahemadabad etc. It's not possible for him - making his availability for more than a day. But with in a day, it can be 2 - 3 rounds - of course it can visualize his attitude, perseverance, stability, endurance, hard working, high energy etc.........

Govind Singh Negi said...

Dear Arpita, Thanks for your appreciation.

Govind Singh Negi said...

Dear Suramaniam,

First of all thanks for giving your time to read the complete article and finding the observation. I do agree that in case candidate is far from the interview location then it not feasible and advisable to call candidate for 2-3 times. Idea is basically to understand whether candidate is really interested in profile you are offering. For such candidates, Recruiter can arrange for telephonic round, later on some technical test or IQ test online and third time candidate should be called for interview.

Anonymous said...

In the conclusion part...

"Even after all above, I would suggest that Recruiter should always keep a Back up Candidate ready as Plan B. Normally, we do not spend much time on finding a back up candidate as we assume that candidate offered by us will surely join."

How to make sure that this Back up Candidate is as good as the 1st candidate, otherwise we are negotiating on the quality.

Govind Singh Negi said...

Dear friend,

Normally when recruiter give offer to a candidate then normally they don't give much of attention to back up candidate. This can be due to many reasons but one of the major reason is other positions on which recruiter need to work. So recruiter give priority to fill open positions rather than finding back up of already offered position. Companies which give importance to arranging backup of offered profile ensure that they give time to recruiter to do so. Suggestions made by me, is actually to ensure that we need not to work on back up candidate because it actually takes time and we need to live with second choice (we have already offered to best suitable person). It is obvious that the backup candidate will not be as good as offered candidate otherwise you would have offered him. But he is the second best suitable candidate.

You can only ensure that you have second best candidate in hand.

Unknown said...

Your Right Mr Subramaniyam

How ever if the candidates come for interview 2-3 times, we can also know the candidates need of job and also we can finalize about his stability and confident whether he will survive in the organization long time or not.

Everything based on the organization>>.

Govind Singh Negi said...

I have seen the positive impact on candidate joining turnover after starting the process of calling candidate for 2-3 times. Candidate chances of joining actually increases. But for out location candidate, you can plan for other rounds of interview, if candidate timely attends all such rounds then you can judge seriousness of candidate.

Anonymous said...

All of these tips are worth practicing and can be applied as per requirement.
No.5 can be a bit discomforting too at times and showcase our weakness to judge the candidate, just a thought.
A person who jumps jobs frequently is usually a Go Getter with high ambitions in life, can be a person who can change around things fast, this too might be a required skill set at times to achieve targets faster.

Govind Singh Negi said...

Dear Friend, Candidate should not be necessary called for interview that many times. First time you can call for HR Round, technical round with reporting manager, Second time you can call for meeting second level hiring manager and HR Manager for salary negotiation if selected and third time candidate can be called for giving offer letter basis salary proof submitted. Earlier i was also not in favor of this but i realized that this works. Hence adopted.

My views on person changing frequent job is different from yours.

sailakshmi said...

very usefull,keep sharing

Govind Singh Negi said...

Thanks for encouragement.

increase conversion rates said...

Nice, all the seven steps are sounding simple to follow and useful. I will forward this blog yo our recruiter in the company where I work. Thanks for sharing.

Govind Singh Negi said...

Dear Friend,

Hope this will surely help your recruitment team to increase their joining conversion rate. Happy Hiring.

Anonymous said...

Is it legal to share offer letter of present company to new potential company?

Govind Singh Negi said...

Dear Friend,

There is no legal aspect in it. Company where you have been shortlisted for a profile will surely ask for income proof.

Unknown said...

Hii Govind

Great Tips and I am sure it definitely works !!

Praneeth

Govind Singh Negi said...

thanks Praneeth for your appreciation

surbhi said...

Need to know, when a candidate is hired and giving his notice period, How HR should keep in touch and what should be the reasons to be in contact with employee so as to judge if the candidate is still interested in the offer.

Anonymous said...

As the recruiter, is it recommended to compose an offer - having that all ready for the backup candidate just in case?

Govind Singh Negi said...

You should ask for resignation acceptance copy from candidate. This will atleast ensure that he has resigned from the company and company is relieving him on such and such date. But it do not confirm that he will join your company only, he may join some other company as he might have other offers in hand. Here comes the recruiter interpersonal skills. You can be in touch with him about how his handover going on etc. Please ensure do not do many calls

Govind Singh Negi said...

Dear Friend,

Your query is not clear to me. Request you to explain in detail.

Sarita Pareek said...

Dear Sir,
Once again thanks for such an informative article.

Govind Singh Negi said...

Dear Sarita,

Thanks for your appreciation.