If you’re a manager in today’s market, please pay attention. Last week one of our candidates received an offer from our client. It was a sales position and the job he was leaving had a base of $85,000 plus commission and he had earned in the $150,000 range. Our client’s base salary was only $65,000 and the hiring manager told the candidate that she would have to go to the “higher-ups” to get him more of a guarantee. It took her two weeks to get the management to agree to a $65,000 base plus a $20,000 non-recoverable draw. By the time she got around to offering him the job he had two other offers from similar companies. One offer was for a solid $85,000 base plus commission and the other offer was for a $90,000 base plus a $2,500 monthly non recoverable draw for six months. He took the latter job. It took that company (not our client) three days to hire him. They interviewed him on Tuesday and hired him on Thursday.
In another situation our client company had a “process” that they invented four years ago for hiring candidates. The candidate would have to go through three interviews with three different people and one group interview. It took almost two weeks to get to the group interview and by then the candidate already had two other offers from companies that showed him they really wanted him by pursuing him aggressively and selling him on the job (fortunately one of these was our client). He accepted our second client’s offer and never went to the group interview.
The “group interview” company’s hiring manager is mad at me for not getting the candidate to hold off and then go to the “group interview.” Bluntly, he had egg on his face because he had to cancel the meeting with the group and it didn’t look like he was in control.
In another situation, one of our clients interviewed a candidate who explained to them that she was expecting an offer within the next week. They explained to her that their process takes at least three weeks and they could not move that fast. They asked her if she could postpone making a decision until they had a chance to go through their process and were shocked when she told them that she really needed to go to work and that if the company she expected an offer from came up with a good one, she had no choice but to take it.
Here’s the point: the market for good candidates is a lot different than it was even two years ago. When you see a good candidate you need to hire a person as soon as possible. The “process” you developed three or four years ago to protect yourself from “hiring the wrong candidate” just isn’t going to work. Good companies are recognizing that they need to make the hiring process quick and efficient.
