How to Make a Job Offer Candidates Will Accept

It doesn’t matter what type of business you’re running—sourcing and attracting top-tier talent to fill available positions is always important. After all, workers who are the best possible fit are more engaged and productive.

In today’s hyper-competitive job market, after posting a job listing online, the chances are high that you’ll have many candidates to consider. Once you get through the recruiting, screening, and interviewing processes, you’re ready to make a job offer to the top candidate.

But how do you go about making a job offer? Do you make a job offer over the phone? How do you write a job offer letter? These are all important questions to answer.

Job Offer Tips

Here are some tips about how to make a job offer as you make your way through the hiring process.

Get the Necessary Approval Before You Start Hiring

Before you submit a job listing, you must get any necessary approval and guidance from all key stakeholders. Essentially, you need to fully understand from everyone involved what you’re looking for in an ideal person to fill the available role in the first place.

For the best results, write a detailed job requisition outlining the specific requirements of the role, the expectations of the future employee, and other details such as the compensation and benefits they will receive. Once you’ve written and edited a full job requisition, have it formally reviewed and approved by all necessary stakeholders in your department or organization. Only when everyone is on the same page should you proceed with the rest of the process.

Decide Quickly

Once you have a short list of candidates who would be ideal for your available position, decide on the right candidate as quickly as possible. This is somewhat of a delicate balance, because you don’t want to be hasty and thoughtless, but you shouldn’t wait several weeks to decide. It’s important to be expedient in your hiring process for a few reasons.

First: the current state of the job market. Candidates can and might have multiple offers they are considering.

Second: time is valuable. Many industries are experiencing skills gaps that are getting harder to fill. According to one recent study, roughly 87 percent of large global companies acknowledge that they either already have a skills gap or will be dealing with one in the next few years. The fact you’ve attracted the attention of multiple ideal candidates is an advantage, and now it’s important to not wait to offer someone a position.

Consider as well that it can cost between six and eight months of an employee’s salary to replace them with someone new, in large part because of the time involved in onboarding someone and getting them up to speed and equipped with knowledge and experience to fulfill the role. So, if the person previously in the position you are trying to fill was making $100,000.00 per year, it could cost an estimated $50,000 to $75,000 in time and lost productivity to replace them. The sooner you make a selection, the less time and money you might spend on the hiring process itself.

Make a Job Offer Over the Phone

You’ve selected a candidate! Due to the fast-paced nature of the modern hiring process, you’ll want to let your selected candidate know by calling the chosen candidate and making a job offer over the phone. However, this isn’t as simple as saying “You’re hired!” and having them clock in the following week. There are several core points you’ll need to address in your conversation.

Let Them Know Why They Were Selected

Perhaps the most important point involves explaining to the candidate why they’re the right candidate and why they were selected. You don’t have to talk poorly about anyone else who applied—just reaffirm to the candidate that they were selected based on their skills and merit, along with any other factors that helped shape your decision.

You Can Discuss Compensation & Benefits

Next, you can go into greater detail about items like compensation and benefits. This is important, as the candidate may have applied for other positions and received other offers, and they need to understand exactly what advantages you offer to them to help them make a decision to accept. A great way to stay competitive throughout the candidate’s decision process is by confirming what they will be making and any benefits that you offer is

Open the Floor to Questions

During your conversation, you’ll also want to ask if the candidate has any questions about the role. They’ll likely be curious about things you didn’t necessarily have time to go over in an interview. Answering any questions that they have is a great way to build trust and set realistic expectations for the future.

Detail Next Steps

Next, you can discuss the finer details of the hiring process, like their formal start date, a timeline to accept the verbal offer, and a general timeline of when to expect a written offer after that.

You don’t want to put any undue pressure on them, but this can also be a situation in which neither party can afford to wait for too long. Outline that the company has a timeline, and if you haven’t heard anything by that date, you will keep in communication with other candidates. You can respect their time while also setting the expectation that your time is respected, too.

Follow Up With a Job Offer Letter

After you’ve made your job offer over the phone, follow up with a job offer letter. This should be done after a candidate has accepted the verbal offer. Essentially, you want to reiterate everything that you discussed during your call, like compensation and benefits, start date, and the deadline to accept the job offer.

This is important for the candidate to have for their reference. Getting a job offer over the phone begins the process of filling the role with a specific candidate, and a formal letter (in the mail or email) adds a formality and structure to the hiring process.

Inform the Other Candidates

Assuming the candidate accepts your job offer, you’ll then want to call any other candidates on your list who may have been in the running for the position. Let them know that you were very impressed by their resume, skills, and everything they had to offer, but you went with another candidate.

Given the fact that the hiring process has become increasingly competitive in recent years, especially with many industries facing skills gaps and labor shortages, you don’t want to burn any bridges with great candidates. This is especially true if the candidates in question would be ideal for any future openings that you may have. Letting them know that they weren’t selected this time as a courtesy is an excellent way to keep the door open should things change in the future. They may ask for feedback, and be honest with them then, too.

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Job Offer FAQs

What do you say when you offer someone a job?

When offering someone a job, it’s important to make sure they’re clear on:

• Why they were selected
• Expectations for the role in the first 90 days and beyond
• The qualities they possess that are important to you and the role
• Compensation and benefits
• Timelines for accepting the job

Each conversation will look a little different, but make sure you are hitting those primary points.

How do you create an offer letter?

Creating a job offer letter is fairly straightforward. It’s a formal document, so include your company logo or official letterhead. After an opening paragraph that confirms they are being offered the position, go into more detail about the job itself. Let them know the title, how many hours they will be working, where they will be working, whom they will report to, and more.

Next, outline items like their pay and benefits, any applicable bonus structures, whether they can work remotely, and so on. At this point, you can include a closing paragraph that reiterates most of what you’ve communicated and includes both your contact information and that of your human resources department so they can get answers to any questions or concerns.

How long should you wait for a job offer response?

There is no firm rule regarding how much time you can give someone to respond to a job offer. It will ultimately come down to your business needs and how urgently the position must be filled. Having said that, most organizations give someone a full week (seven days) to make a decision, especially if they have other offers they need to carefully consider.

Need Help With the Hiring Process?

If you’ve made it to the job offer stage, you might not need help with this hire. However, in the future, Insight Global can help with the hiring process from start to finish, from writing job descriptions to sourcing candidates to handling the onboarding process.