Your candidate just declined your offer unexpectedly, now what?

I've seen this scenario played out a handful of times.  You have spent weeks crafting an employment ad, considering your employment branding, paying for advertising, phone screening a number of candidates, interviewing candidates face to face, crafting an offer, negotiations, receiving a verbal acceptance, and then 1 week before training is set to begin...BOOM!  The floor drops out and the candidate declines the offer to pursue a different opportunity.

What follows is a myriad of complex emotions, trying to figure out what went wrong.  Was the offer not competitive?  Is my company reputation or brand not as strong as I think it is?  Is my product not competitive enough that this person believes they can sell it?  Is it because i don't have a ping pong table, a keg of beer, and free snacks? (more about this later)  Are my online reviews terrible?  And the ultimate knife in the heart... it something YOU did or said that gave the candidate cold feet.  Let's calm down and take a breath as this is a fairly common occurrence and there are just too many variables to consider before you start ripping up your comp models and drastically shifting your selling strategy.  Let's explore your options below.

Offer the backup candidate

Fortunately throughout the interview process you probably have a number of candidates that you were considering.  The obvious choice is to move forward with your runner up candidate.  This is a slippery slope where you want to proceed with caution.  The challenge really lies in whether or not your second candidate was a "close second" or a "distant second".  I strongly recommend not jamming a lower tier candidate just because you want your training class to be maximized.  The resources you will need to duplicate your training efforts will be worthwhile compared to the pain of bringing on a sub par hire and dealing with the stress and frustration that comes with it.

Reschedule the Training

Another option is to start the process over from the beginning, push the training back and give it another chance.  Candidates move and groove and come and go as time goes on.  By starting the process over you may gain access to a candidate that actually wasn't even looking the first time you went through the hiring process and could quite possibly be stronger than the original who broke your heart.

Employer branding

Here lies the number one consideration that if you haven't put any thought around up until this point, the recent turn of events should tell you that now is the time.  Kristy Nitzkoff, founder of Talent Savvy, focuses on solutions that create and optimizes winning recruitment strategies for organizations who are struggling to attract top talent.  She focuses on employment branding, process improvement, interview training, and employee onboarding – everything it takes to find, hire, and welcome a new employee.

Kristy says "when you think of the phrase employment brand we are thinking of the idea that comes to mind when someone hears the name of your organization, the feeling that they get.  That can be something positive like you are doing great things for the world or your employees, or this could be something negative like I haven't heard of this company before or that they don't treat their employees well.  The best thing about whatever that opinion might be is that it can be changed and that you have the ability to help them make that change"

For more information or to set up a meeting to talk through your options, please contact us directly at info@jaeadvise.com.