The Art of the Job Offer: Encourage Candidates to Turn You Down

 By Auren Hoffman 

Build the Best Team by Lowering Your Job Offer Acceptance Rate

Most people go about giving a job offer in the wrong way.  They try to sell the candidate and win them over.  There's a better strategy.
 
As a hiring manager, your objective is to get great employees who are always thinking about the challenges ahead, love their job, and are a good fit with the company culture.  It is possible, with the right interview, to determine if someone is a great engineer ... but too often hiring managers only go after people with great talent.  They forget about fit and that's because fit is so hard to interview for and assess.  
 
One great way to determine fit is not to explicitly assess it all.  Instead, let the candidate make the choice and opt-out.  We've been extraordinarily successful at hiring here at Rapleaf and that's because we encourage candidates to turn us down.
 
First, don't use the offer as an opportunity to sell the candidate.  Try to be honest and open with each candidate.  Tell them your goal for all employees is for them to love their jobs and that they should not take the job if they have doubts.  You've only been able evaluate the person for a dozen hours - but the candidate has known herself all her life.   She will be a much better judge if she fits the culture.
 
Next, be completely honest about the culture.   At Rapleaf, we take at least 15 minutes to spell out, in detail, the company culture.   Tell them your organization's quirks and what is expected of employees.  Some of the many things that are particular to Rapleaf that we tell all candidates:
 

• We're frugal.  We'll wait until we're very profitable before we pay for fancy dinners.
• We give each other a good dose of constructive criticism.  We happily give and take criticism.  We want to better ourselves and the others around us. 
• We do not value our own ideas more than those ideas generated by our teammates.  
• We work long hours.  We believe great things are accomplished 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration. 
• We believe the perfect is the enemy of the good.  This means we focus on getting things done, not on building the most perfect system.  We strongly believe in rapid iteration.

 
Really talk through the culture during the offer.   If you want your employees to work long hours, you better tell them that is expected before they accept the offer.  Conversely, if you believe strongly in a 40-hour workweek, tell the candidate because many people are looking to change the world and they want to work with people who really make the company mission a priority.  
 
The essential take-away is not to sugar-coat the experience.  Be completely honest.  
 
Then, tell the candidates your concerns about them.   Tell them what you like about them and what they will need to improve upon to be a productive employee.  And tell them not to take the job if they don't think they can make those improvements.  This is the toughest thing for a hiring manager to do but it is important because it really sets the expectations.
 

Fourth, don't give candidates a long time to make a decision.   Two days is fair.   If they don't know they want to work for you in two days, then they should probably turn down your job offer.
 
And give a salary that is a bit below market.  You want to make sure candidates REALLY want to work at your company.   Then you should make sure you take care of your employees and give them frequent raises so they end up being paid above market.   This way you get the both worlds - employees who are really excited about the company and who are happy that they are appreciated by management (because of the frequent raises).  
 
Your goal as a hiring manager is get the best team member, not just the best athlete.   If you're managing a basketball team, you want someone that is a great player.   But you also need someone that will work well with the other team members and makes them all better.

Tags: hiring
posted by bruce on Friday, June 27 2008 permalink | comments (0)

Alesia Benedict's Advice for Giving an Old Resume New Life

His old resume was fairly dated. He started it with the education section, a technique that is used by new graduates, not seasoned executives. He also listed the dates of his degrees which will give away age. True, employers will eventually find out the age of the candidate but remember, the job of the resume is to open the door. Having older dates listed can result in an immediate exclusion of the candidate rather than having the resume put into the for further consideration pile.

To counter any potential negatives associated with age, in his new resume I moved the education to the end of the resume where it belongs and removed the dates. The earlier experience prior to 1997 is placed into a paragraph under Career Note where the dates are deemphasized and job titles are highlighted using formatting elements.

The client had also completely neglected to introduce himself to the reader and establish a strong branding message. On the old resume, there was no summary or profile to give the reader a preview of what was to follow in the resume. The reader was left in the dark from the start. I developed a strong positioning title line at the top that left no doubt to the level and function of the position he is targeting. I followed that with an executive summary that encapsulated his strong experience into a concise section.

Following the executive summary, I created a core competencies section full of keywords that related directly to his experience. This section is used as an ataglance section for the reader but also provides keywords for database searches. Since we do not know what phrases recruiters will be using, I included some that are similar and cover the same basic function such as Product Strategy and Product RollOut to catch as many keyword searches as possible without being overly redundant.

Digging for Gold

In the old resume, the client had given a basic overview of job duties and had not brought true accomplishments out where they would be noticed. Much was buried in the text and much was not even mentioned. During the development process, the client was able to provide me with additional information that he had originally considered unimportant. With these new specifics, I was able to bring more punch into the experience section. This was a great example of the value of an objective viewpoint and the importance of thoroughness in the provision of background information. I found jewels of accomplishments he didn't realize he had!In the original version, his job duties were vague and worded at a level that was not indicative of his success.

The bullets on the old resume were too long to be effective and what achievements he did have were buried in the body. I rewrote his role description and brought forth his accomplishments in tight, hardhitting bullets that carried metrics wherever possible to demonstrate the accomplishment rather than just describing it. A huge mistake was made in the old resume with the inclusion of a personal section. Hobbies, dates of birth, health conditions none of this information is used on a resume anymore and simply by including it, he has shown he may be out of touch with hiring laws not a good thing. I made sure this information was not included in the new resume. He needs to be judged on his accomplishments and skills, not his marital status or health.

Visual Impression

The old resume was too busy with too many design elements and use of a serif font which made it more of a chore to read in 45 seconds. I streamlined the formatting and created a logical progression through the document that is easy to follow with the eye. I removed the months from the employment dates and went with years only. I kept design elements to a minimum using simply bolding and bullets to make it easier on the eyes. Now he is ready to jump start his career and line up those interviews!

Alesia Benedict, Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and Job and Career Transition Coach (JCTC), is the President and CEO of GetInterviews.com, a 14+ year old resume and career branding firm that aids senior and C-level executives through their job search. She's been cited by JIST Publications as one of the "best resume writers in North America," quoted as a career expert in The Wall Street Journal, and is published in 20+ career books. She has long been an inspirational mentor and trainer to other resume writers and career professionals.

Is HR KO'd?

Probably like you, I have many friends that work in HR (Human Resources) and they seem to truly enjoy the person-to-person contact that comes with their career. They are able to talk with many people on the phone and learn more about people, the ones they hire and business growth. It was not very long ago that HR meant many hours on the phone and many hours reviewing typed resumes.

Today, it seems, HR is another process that has taken the brunt of overload in Information Technology (IT)! Of course, hiring has changed dramatically in the last six or so years with the massive loss of jobs, the mergers and acquisitions. There are a tremendous number of people that are out of work, working for less than they did a few years ago, working at a job with no significant raises and they are all hoping to move to something better.

How could this negatively affect HR? It seems that it would be their time to blossom with all of the great human talent searching for positions. Well, what would we do when we place an advertisement for a new position and receive hundreds of resumes for that position in just a few hours? It may be similar to the large percentage of people that win the lottery and are required to file bankruptcy in just a few years.

How can anyone professionally handle that much continual change in such a short time?

When I apply for a career position, as another one of the millions that seem to be searching for a position at this time, it seems that 98% of the jobs I apply for reply with the message similar to: Our normal screening process takes between two and three weeks. Please note that due to the high level of applications we receive on a daily basis, we are unable to respond directly to each applicant to our openings.

If you are employed, that reply may be very disappointing. If you are unemployed, it may be devastating. What do you do? Can you call HR directly? Can you reach out to the HR department as we did before the new millennium? Not in the majority of situations.

If you happen to know someone or have a friend at the company you are interested in, they may be able to help you find someone to contact. In most cases, you and I may be just another number, or maybe an email address, to an HR system where the people are doing the very best they can to juggle the thousands of applications while they are talking on the phone!

What are your thoughts? Please feel free to give me feedback. Job, employment, hr, human resources, it, information technology, mark Entrekin

1099 vs. W2

1099-Misc vs. W2

Have you ever been asked about working as a consultant or 1099 employee or have you ever considered being self-employed? Well, there may be many more questions to consider before you ponder answering that question or taking that leap. Let us just think high-level for a minute.

You probably realize that a W2 employee is not required to make periodic tax payments or report to the IRS except on an annual basis the employer is responsible for the majority tax accountability. A 1099 employee is expected to manage their income on monthly, quarterly or a semi-annual basis depending on their filing status. If you are considering a 1099 or self-employed status, your first thought might be to consider how much you enjoy tracking finances and entering data into what may first seem like a never ending stack of forms.

Are you a detail person or prefer someone else to handle the details? If you truly want to pay only the taxes you are responsible for, a 1099 employee should keep detailed records and maintain an ongoing tax education. A great benefit to being a 1099 employee is the ability to hire experts to maintain your summary information. This helps you because, once you find a capable tax person, they make their income by providing you with the best possible tax information available.

As a 1099 employee, you should truly be an expert at what you do as a performer. You earn an excellent income because you are an expert at what you do and you hire other experts to accomplish the tasks that you do not want to do or do not have time to do. Then, at the end of each tax period, you are able to account for your earnings, write-off the expenses you paid and then report your income.

Welcome to the How to Find a Better Job Network

Welcome to the general group under the "How to Find a Better Job" network. Here you will find general information about how to search, apply, and interview for a job as well as other members who share your interest in finding a job or are recruiters.