Navigate The Hiring Process With Winning Counter Offer Strategies
Your company has job openings and you want to attract top nonprofit professionals. However, it’s an employee’s market and counter offer statistics show you likely aren’t the only one courting them. Fortunately, there are ways to position yourself to be successful, and there are several counter offer strategies to get the candidate to choose you.Â
Nurys Harrigan-Pedersen at Careers In Nonprofits (CNP) shares three ways to win in this difficult market:
- Design an in-depth interview that helps you really get a feel for your candidate;
- Use the interview to tailor the position to meet their needs; and
- Keep them engaged in your follow-up plan.
Nurys has 25 years of nonprofit search and staffing experience and founded CNP in 2006. The company is now positioned to be the national authority in nonprofit staffing. Here is a more detailed look at her tips:
Design The Perfect Interview
The application process doesn’t truly give you a good understanding of the applicant — but the interview can if you do it right. First, the goal is to go deeper, not wider, when thinking about how to design the perfect interview. Before considering what you’ll ask candidates, think about what details you’d like to learn from them. This can include details that will help you sweeten the deal, if you find yourself thrown into the counter offer stage. Then formulate questions that will help you get to know them. While asking the questions, listen to information they are providing, and be willing to adapt your questions to take a deep dive during the conversation, if necessary.Â
Bottom line: The employer who asks the most questions wins – because they get the best feel for how to meet the candidate’s needs. A great interview will help you attract, hire and retain the right candidate for your company, and so will tailoring the job to that person.
Tailor The Role
Tailoring the position to the right candidate doesn’t mean changing the entire role, but it does mean identifying what the candidate wants and being willing to customize the opportunity wherever possible. Too often, employers forget to listen to the candidate.Â
Employers don’t think outside the box to adapt the role and make the employee a counter offer that truly meets their needs. While an in-depth interview will help you get to know the candidate, the second step is to implement the information they give you. Keep a list of their interests and goals and highlight how your company meets those when making an offer. Including tailored details like these are a key step when navigating any counter offers that may come. And once you make that offer and they accept, the final step is to keep them engaged.
Build Trust and Loyalty
Keeping a candidate engaged while waiting for them to start their new role is important to ensure that other recruiters don’t try to lure them away. One way to be successful after hiring a counter offer employee is to keep the start date as close to the offer as possible. The sooner you can get them into their role, the less likely you are to lose them to another company.Â
You should also touch base with new hires at least weekly, especially if your start date is more than three weeks from the offer acceptance. You can schedule times with them to meet with HR, assign them an orientation training, or arrange for a coffee meeting to chat details. Building this trust and loyalty between your company and prospective employees is important to the hiring process and can also help with retention rates.
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