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[Negotiation + Offer letter] Best Practices to Ensure Hiring Success

Updated on: 17th Apr 2024

7 mins read

Best Practices to Ensure Hiring Success

In the current scenario, the job market is highly candidate driven. By candidate-driven market we imply that the power shifts from the recruiter to the candidates in certain contexts. For example, the candidate might say that they want a work-from-home job, or they can make a counteroffer during the interview.

As a recruiter, you need to be consistent to hire the finest talent in the market, you need to while fulfilling their duties related to the hiring process, especially the final stage. The final round, consisting of an offer letter and negotiations, influences the decision of the candidate the most.

In this blog we will uncover the best practices to create an offer letter and get to know some highly recommended negotiation tips to hire great talents.

Top 5 strategies to create a winning offer.

Below listed are the top techniques to make a compelling offer.

  • The “Impeccable Timing” technique: After the interview process, don’t let your candidate wait for too long as they might have other job offers prevailing. Also, punctuality presents a gesture of discipline which enhances the employer brand. Create a policy in your offer acceptance guidelines to send the offer letter to selected candidates within 5-6 days.

    In the duration of interview day and the offer letter delivery, maintain regular communication with the employee to ensure that they don’t lose interest. Engage them through various activities, such as asking them to upload all the necessary documents till the time or sharing personalized video to give them a warm welcome or sending LinkedIn posts via email.

  • The “Nothing-To-Hide” technique: Always be clear and concise while creating an offer letter. Mention all the crucial details related to the candidate including salary, benefits, perks, company policies, reporting officers, leave system. These things affect the candidate directly and it’s necessary for them to have all the important information from the start. This will build trust and elevate transparency.
  • The “Brief disclosure” technique: Mention all the possible disclosure in the offer letter generated, the supervision, their reporting officer; confidentiality, the agreement they need to sign that include the rules and policies with respect to the confidentiality of the sensitive company information; evaluation, the performance management factor and career growth opportunities. You can highlight the importance of your company culture and values through your offer letter.
  • The “Motivator” technique: Use encouraging words in your offer letter to give a great start to the candidate as your employee. They should feel motivated and enthusiastic about your words. For example, you can add “We believe that your dedication and enthusiasm will motivate everyone around you” or “With extreme pleasure we are excited to welcome you on board”.
  • The “Delivery method” technique: What you deliver is not the only concern. How you deliver is a major factor too. Sending the offer letter doesn’t make any difference if you don’t do it right. To ensure that the candidate doesn’t have any queries regarding the offer letter or negotiations, you can communicate with them through calls or text messages. This will present your gesture of “we care”. You can mention a line in the offer letter saying “In case of any query, feel free to contact us. We would love to help.”.

    HROne AI is a feature of HROne that can be used to generate exceptional offer letters. Along with this, it also provides an option to save and reuse already created offer letter templates.

What to do in case they give you a counteroffer?

An experienced and worthy candidate might give you a counteroffer in some way like “other company is offering me better than this”. What would you do? Well, in such a case, you can take your decision in two ways first, you give them a better offer than the offer given to the candidate by the other company and second, you let them go. This decision can be influenced by various features such as your budget.

To address counteroffers and negotiations, here are some tips for you:

  • Be okay with open communication: Let the candidate openly share their thoughts with you. Be a friend while they are discussing so that you can get the issues they are facing and strengths and weaknesses of the other offer. Encourage them to be clear about their counteroffer.
  • Discuss and decide: Discuss with the hiring managers and department heads about the counteroffer situation. They are experienced in the field, and they know the worth. Jot down the pros and cons and then rationalize. Take a good decision considering all the factors including your budget.
  • Acknowledge the candidate: Acknowledge the candidate’s value by expressing your appreciation for the candidate’s valuable time and willingness to join the company. This will foster a positive conversation between you and the candidate and present your pragmatic approach.
  • Go beyond the basics: Don’t just stick to the salary and compensation. Educate the candidate about your company culture, goals, growth and development opportunities. This will give them a different point of view about your company. You can mention how you encourage work-life balance, positive work environment, team dynamics.

Negotiation tips to hire great candidates in budget.

According to the survey, more than one-third (35%) of candidates reported they received four or more offers during their last job search. Among nearly 2,000 candidates who recently accepted an offer, 47% said they were still open to other job offers after accepting a position, while 42% believed they could find a better job if they continued looking.”

-states a report by Gartner.

Here are some strategies for successful negotiation that will help you to hire great candidates in the given budget.

What to do before negotiation?

  • Know your budget: Before entering the negotiation stage, ensure that you are aware of the budget given to you by the managers for the open position. This includes a brief about the compensation details.
  • Know all about the job: Do proper research about the job relating to the salary and location so that you offer fair and generic compensation to the candidate.
  • Flex at your best: Identify all the lucrative areas beyond the compensation and pay that might attract the candidate to be an employee for you. This can include your company culture, values, career development.

What to do during the negotiation?

  • Communicate openly: Honestly discuss your budget limitation with the candidate. Focus on explaining your decision-making process and represent your commitment.
  • Be an active listener: Always listen carefully while the candidate is talking about their concerns and issues. You can only help them after understanding what they say. After understanding the exact scenario, tailor your package to settle the issues of the candidate.
  • Maintain the tone: Maintain a positive tone during the negotiation discussion. In case you can’t meet the candidate’s expectations, continue with your calm and composed tone throughout.

This is how you can create a remarkable offer letter.

Now that you know the significance of making an exceptional offer and considerable negotiations, let us help you with a template of offer letter generated by HROne with their HROne AI feature.

Download Free Offer Letter Format & Sample.

Here is one last tip that you should consider, never ever ghost your candidates. Ghosting your candidates not only lowers the expectations of the candidates personally but also affects your employer brand in the market. Recruitment is one of the most crucial tasks for HR and essential elements like offer letters and negotiation, which might not seem as important, can affect the whole system.

With that, we conclude the blog. Hope it helped!

Bhavna Singh

Manager, Talent Acquisition

Bhavna Singh leads Talent acquisition function for HROne. With Over 9+ years of experience in IT/Non IT and semi govt firms she has a vast experience in talent acquisition and employee onboarding.

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