The underlying reason why five candidates ghosted us after sending out our offer!
A lot has been said about how employers must conduct themselves when hiring someone. We’ve advocated for:
However, I’ve not seen much about the dilemmas faced by employers when candidates don’t uphold their word.??
In the last quarter, five candidates put us through the following circle:?
Back at square one!
It is not just the time and money spent on the recruitment process. There is a huge opportunity cost too.?
When the candidate rejects our offer, there is a domino effect across the business. It impacts our capacity planning, resource allocation, and sales pipeline. Not to mention that we have missed out on other good candidates who may have since then moved on.
To “fix” our hiring practice, I broke down our entire process with the flawed assumption that our offer was not attractive enough.?
Here’s the thing - our offer was fantastic. Our pay is on par with industry standards. Plus, like big tech firms, we allow employees to work from anywhere.?
Since our offer was solid, I thought, innocently, perhaps Avonet was too small for their expectations.
Again, no.?
These candidates were NOT head-hunted. They all responded to our vacancy ads. Surely, they’ve done their research.?
I dug deeper. I did some LinkedIn stalking.?
What I found out shocked me.
All of them are still with the companies they wanted to leave.
I then reached out to my extended network to find out why.?
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Here’s what they told me:
Their employers had matched our offer and got them to stay.?
The candidates? used our offer as leverage to negotiate a better deal.?
Our time and energy were simply a bargaining chip.?
They secured their career aspirations at our expense.
Now, just to be clear, I’m knocking them. It’s 100% ok to reject a job offer. I’ve done it too!
This is not a rant about “time wasted” because candidates didn’t keep their word.?
We cannot achieve 100% success in the recruitment process. A modest 25% is the standard. Yet, here we are, at less than 10%! Ouch.?
I believe that this whole thing could have been avoided if these candidates had the opportunities to speak openly with their employer.
At most workplaces, this happens only during the annual performance review. Several companies even delay these reviews, or take their own sweet time to act on what was discussed. It is only when the employee threatens to leave that the management takes notice.?
Every organisation must provide opportunities for their people to discuss their expectations with their supervisors.
At Avonet, everyone has easy access to not just their supervisors but senior management too. We complement this with our one-on-one to ensure every single person is heard and has a safe platform to voice their thoughts.?
Further, we are implementing an on-demand survey engine via Microsoft Teams to provide another channel for open communication. This will play a crucial role in our employee well-being initiatives.
However, all these processes are just words. The proof is in the pudding - our retention rate has been 100% since the last financial year.
Surely, we must be doing something right for those who accept our offer!
We are currently looking for a Tech lead to join our team in Sri Lanka - Apply here