Most recruiters think that their job is done once the candidate accepts the offer. But that’s not entirely true.
Even after the placement is completed, you need to check up on the new hires and clients if both parties are satisfied. That is the REAL indicator of your recruitment process’ success.
In this article, I will help you explore ways to make long-term hiring decisions to drive the maximum job satisfaction in your candidates.
Let’s dive in.
How can recruiters help candidates make career decisions?
The other day someone asked me if they should quit their job. I handed them the graphic shown above and asked them to rank the six factors on a scale of 1-5, from terrible to outstanding.
- The Factors: Compensation, hiring manager and team, work itself, growth opportunity, work-life balance and company culture.
- Ranking System: 5: Outstanding, 4: Very Good, 3: Pretty Good, 2: Not So Good, 1: Terrible.
I told them, since these are the factors that drive job satisfaction, they should consider leaving if the total score was less than 14-15 or if any of the factors were terrible. You’d be surprised to know that this ACTUALLY made the person consider quitting their job.
I mentioned that they shouldn’t leave until they had another job that scored well over 20 using the same ranking system. Otherwise, they’d just be going from a bad situation to one just marginally better.
While the chart has value for figuring out if a candidate should quit their current job, in my mind, it’s more valuable for comparing different job offers and figuring out which one represents the best career move.
Candidates can use the same evaluation approach when considering a counteroffer, too.
How to make a hiring decision that is beneficial for your candidates?
I’d just ask my candidates if they really wanted the job if it weren’t for the compensation.
While they all said yes, only those genuinely interested in the job could explain why in any detail.
Looking back on it, in most cases the compensation was quite competitive, but at least four of the other five categories scored a four or five.
It also turned out that when the decision was made this way in over 90% of the cases (more than 500 placements) the candidates still were enthused about the job on the first year anniversary.
I call this a win-win hiring outcome!
That’s why doing this type of analysis before accepting a job offer or counteroffer is so important.
While this is a simple way to compare jobs, candidates need extra insight about the job, the team, and the company to make a complete career assessment.
What can companies and recruiters do to make long-term recruiting decisions?
In most cases, the typical interviewing and recruiting process doesn’t provide enough insight.
But, I found that a performance-based job description describing the top objectives for the role and digging into a candidate’s major comparable accomplishment was an ideal technique.
Using this interviewing method, hiring managers knew if the candidate was capable of handling the role and the candidate knew if the job represented a career-worthy move.
Unfortunately, most companies don’t use this approach and aren’t able to give candidates the information needed to make this type of an in-depth career assessment when making offers.
Sadly, in too many cases, candidates accept offers based on the size of the compensation package coupled with some hopes and promises about the job itself.
My only advice to candidates is to become cynical. Don’t make a single decision without the data you need to make a balanced long-term career decision.
And coming to recruiters, you need to reach out to your candidates and ensure you’re explaining the factors that influencer career decisions and ask for a solid explanation on what apart from compensation is driving them towards the role. That should do the trick!
Happy recruiting 🙂
