- There is nowhere near the number of candidates available to you that you thought there were.
- The candidates you do see are going to come into your interview with two or three offers.
- Most candidates are going to be a little cocky about the situation their in because for the past few years, up until lately, you were rude to them, didn’t given the time of day, didn’t call them back, took forever to let them know how they stood (if you did it all) …and they remember it.
- Candidates are “in control” and they know it.
- Over the last 10 years, most employees (maybe including you) have developed an attitude of “there is no loyalty on the part of the companies I’ve worked for, so, I’m going to get everything I can that’s good for me., these companies have treated me like a “rented mule” for all these years, and there’s no reason for me to feel compassion for them. I’m going to get all I can.”
- Candidates are going to accept your job and then leverage it with two others, or try to get a counter offer.
- The longer you drag out the interviewing process, the less likely you are to land the candidate you want. The candidate you want, others want too.
- You are likely to have to pay more money for the kind of candidate you want than you did even six months ago, which of course is going to infuriate all of the other people in the department, which will cause them to ask you for more money or leave.
- Everyone in your company knows that the market is hot, so be nice and be appreciative of everybody (the major reason why people leave their job is that they feel unappreciated…especially if they are underpaid.
- Expect that all of the people in your company are being recruited by your competitors.
- Pursue at least three or four candidates at a time to the final stages of an offer. If you hone in on one candidate and drag the process on for more than a week or so, there’s a good chance you’re going to start all over.
- Expect candidates to negotiate from a position of strength.
- Don’t make the negotiation adversarial.
- No matter how your best candidate turns you down…. even by calling you up the day before they are supposed to show up for work and tell you they’re going to work somewhere else…be graceful. You may need this candidate again down the line. (If you have two or three good candidates in the queue, you don’t have to worry about this.)
- Cut down your interviewing process to no more than three people and do all the interviewing within a week.
- Realize that you may not get all of the experience you might really like for what you would like to pay. So, look for as much “athleticism” as you can find in lesser experienced candidates.
- Until your new employee has been on the job for at least 9 to 120 days, don’t be surprised if they come into your office one day and explained that they got an offer “they simply can’t pass up” from someone they had been interviewing with when they were interviewing with you.
- For all kinds of reasons, expect these market conditions to last for another two years.
