When your Candidate needs to "think about" your offer | Why Recruiters ask if you're interviewing elsewhere

Good afternoon all and hope you have a fantastic week ahead! On today's issue of my Weekly LinkedIn Newsletter ONLY on LinkedIn (make sure you hit that "Subscribe" button):

• Why your top Candidate in the running wants to "think about" your Job Offer?
• Why do Recruiters keep asking if you're interviewing anywhere else?

Why your Top Candidates says they need to "think about it" before accepting your Offer

First I want to clarify what I'm talking about here is NOT when someone requests some time to read over your Offer. Everyone should be given time to read your Job Offer over completely, take note of any questions/clarifications required, etc before making a final decision.

I'm not talking about that. What I'm referring to here is when your Top Candidate, whom you've presented with an Offer has done all that, and their initial assessment of your Offer is...

"Thanks, I've read the offer over - let me think it over...".

Look - if someone has read over your Offer and their initial response to it after that is not questions/clarifications, but that they want to "think about it", you need to investigate because it means they have a certain level of uncertainty about getting onboard with you and your Organization. And whatever that area of uncertainty is, they might not be willing to bring it out into the open with you.

Think about any time in your life where you - as a Customer/Consumer - have come to the conclusion that you had to "think about" something before going ahead and making the purchase.

Why was it? What prevented you from arriving at a firm YES or NO final decision? Probably uncertainty. You were uncertain about some aspect of the purchase. Maybe you heard something about the product. Maybe something didn't make sense. Maybe some additional research was missing. Maybe more information was required. So on and so forth.

You weren't ready to say yes. You weren't ready to say no. You were uncertain about something.

Going back to the recruitment process: as a Recruiter, at this point, I'd be doing a further investigation into what this area of uncertainty might be so I can address it or coordinate a discussion between my Candidate and my Client (Hiring Manager) so they can talk it out and get to a firm "Yes" or "No" in regards to moving ahead.

Typically this area exists at the intersection between what you and your Organization is offering overall through this role (to clarify, I don't mean just compensation, but every aspect of the overall opportunity) and what the Candidate's wants/needs are - which hopefully you've been assessing and taking note of throughout your recruitment process thus far. If not, it might mean re-visiting your Candidate's career motivations to look for any gaps between them and you.

The point I'm trying to make here is: if they can't arrive at a firm "yes" or a firm "no", then that means there's a disconnect you need to investigate and address in order to see if you can still move things along with this Candidate. Your aim is to help them get to that "yes" or "no" final decision.

Uncertainty is not a final decision.

If you're an Organization looking to hire Tech Talent in the Greater Toronto Area in Canada, reach out to me for more details on how I can help you: [email protected] or direct message me here on LinkedIn.

Why do Recruiters keep asking if you're interviewing anywhere else?

Getting annoyed about why some Recruiters keep asking you if you're interviewing anywhere else? And some of them even ask you how far along the process you are and if you're expecting any final Offers?

Like - what does it matter where else you're interviewing and whether you're expecting any offers? You're clearly interested in this Organization they presented you for so what's the big deal with asking this?

Let me clear things up about this right away for you: whether you're actively interviewing or not and how close you are to receiving a Job Offer elsewhere, is key information the Recruiter uses to persuade the Hiring Team to move faster with the Interviewing process.

This is especially the case with Staffing Agencies and Third-Party Recruiters.

All Recruiters know the tough reality about stellar Candidates: the slower the Interview process, the greater the chance another Organization will scoop you up.

While Hiring Teams don't intentionally slow down their Recruitment process, the reality is that recruitment and hiring is not their primary function. All "Hiring Managers" have their own core sets of duties and responsibilities which are typically unrelated to recruiting and they typically are in the middle of ongoing projects. So its very easy for interviews and recruitment to get sidelined and delayed, no matter how much they might like you, simply due to prioritizing their primary day to day activities. This is where recruiters add in a sense of urgency to the Hiring Team and let them know "Look - I understand you're busy but Stacy is actively interviewing with 2 other Organizations right now and if we don't move fast, they might get Offers in front of her before we do and we lose before we even get the chance to show her a solid Offer. Let's schedule her in for her next Interview ASAP."

So the next time a Recruiter asks if you're actively interview, how far along the process you are with other Organizations, etc - understand its most probably so that they can communicate a sense of urgency to the Hiring Team and help move things along as quickly as possible.

If you're an IT Professional in the Greater Toronto Area with 3+ years of professional work experience, follow me and keep in touch for Career opportunities and more helpful content to assist in your Job Search.

That's it for this week - see you next time!

Any topics you want me to cover in a future Edition? Let me know in the comments - don't forget to Like + Subscribe if you haven't already!

Dean Kulaweera - IT Recruiter | Director, Recruitment & Sales |?Tech Recruiters 360

All social links here