10 Ways To Close Top Candidates With Multiple Offers

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Hearing the infamous “I’m currently looking at a few other offers at the moment, can I get back to you in a couple days?” from your best candidate can be discouraging. Starting all over with the hiring process is not something hiring managers want to do often.

That’s why having the best tactics to help you close on candidates that might be considering other offers is crucial. We have put together the top ten ways to close on top candidates with multiple offers so they choose your company over another.

Key Takeaways:

• Follow the golden rule of always be closing (ABC) even from the first interview to help improve your candidate satisfaction.

• Re-evaluating your hiring process and shorten it if needed can help reduce the chances of your candidate exploring other options.

• Ask the candidate what they want with benefits and salary and don’t try to lowball them with their salary.

10 Ways To Close Top Candidates With Multiple Offers

1. Always be closing. You’ve probably heard it before. ABC – Always Be Closing. The key to winning the war for the best candidate is to continuously work on closing them right from the outset.

   The time to begin working on closing the candidate is not when you’re at offer stage; it’s when you first meet them. If you’re running around looking for a way to sweeten the deal after you’ve already made your offer, it might be too late. Unless the candidate has been lying to you, you should have a fair idea of whether they will accept your offer when you make it.

   It’s your job to find out during the very first interview what other roles they may have applied for directly, what positions they may have been represented for by a recruiter, or even just any other role they might be considered for within their current company.

2. Shorten the hiring cycle. Schedule interviews quickly after advertising or presenting the initial job description. Ask for samples of their work prior to or during the interview so that you can make a good decision in less time. When you are considering multiple candidates, schedule multiple interviews in a single day.

   The more time you take to make your decision, the more time the candidate has to explore other opportunities.

3. Listen to what the candidate wants. It’s easy to assume you know what will make a candidate interested in the position and ultimately accept it. The best way to understand what they want is to ask your candidate to create a wish list for their next role. Get them to talk through it right there in front of you and to write it all down.

4. Don’t try to lowball. Trying to undercut an employee by saving a few dollars on their salary is a sure way to let the candidate slip through your fingers. If you want the good employee, pay them what they’re worth.

   If you are making these hires for yourself, a rookie mistake is to assume the salary you made the person before them is good enough for the future employee. Salaries are primarily dependent on the market, what else can they get? Remember that last year’s market prices or what you feel the market prices should be are irrelevant. Do some market research to ensure the salary you offer is competitive.

5. Make the offer quickly. Once you and the company make a decision to hire the candidate, don’t wait to contact them. Even if it is later in the day, call them and don’t wait. Waiting could run the risk of the candidate receiving another offer from another position meaning you lose out. This will give them the opportunity to think over the offer without feeling rushed in when you send the official email the next day.

6. Get details of any other offers. If you have already made an offer to a candidate and they mention that they are considering another offer as well, ask them for details about the other offer. Ask for the salary, benefits, work environment, and what they like and dislike about the job opportunity. Ask what their deciding factors are.

   Don’t make any new offers at this stage, you simply want to garner as much information as you can. Watch that you’re not grilling them, though. Ask questions simply and respectfully, letting them know you want to understand what the competition is and how your role competes.

7. Create meaning and dignity. Often a meaningful job with a lower salary will be chosen over a less meaningful job with a higher salary.

   But what makes a job meaningful? Career progression, challenge, and wider impact. Outline how the role can progress through the company. What challenges will the role be tackling? How does the company as a whole, and that role in particular, make a difference in the world? These are all aspects of the role that will convince a candidate to choose yours over others.

8. Give them the royal treatment. Invite the candidate to lunch and give them another tour of the office they will be working in. Believe it or not, many candidates aren’t even shown their future office or desk before they start. Introduce them to other key people. Show them the great areas for staff relaxation or the noisy production floor where the fantastic products are being created right there on the spot. Give them a taste of the energy of the place and make them want to be there.

9. Have a backup plan. Nothing makes you more confident in a negotiation than a strong backup plan. You know if it all goes awry, things will be okay. This confidence is apparent to the candidate and it subtly weakens their negotiating position. If their other offer is genuinely better and you know you cannot match it, you are empowered to cut off the negotiations and move onto the next person without wasting any time.

10. Revisit your hiring process. If the candidate decides to go with another company, re-evaluate your hiring process and see where improvements can be made. Perhaps you need to have a shorter hiring process with less interviews or maybe only take a few hours instead of days to make a final decision about a candidate.

    Another option is to schedule the initial interview and final interview closer together. This way there is less time for the candidate to branch out to other options and so that there is less time for the hiring team to forget any key details of the interviews.

Final Thoughts

Getting a candidate across the line requires nearly as much luck as it does skill. Employing the right skills at the right time, though, may just turn luck’s beneficial eye in your direction when it really counts.

Author

Taylor Berman

Taylor is a freelance writer from Pennsylvania. Taylor got into writing because she enjoys writing articles that help people and loves creating stories that inspire. She earned a bachelor's degree in journalism and public relations with an interest in communications media from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.