How can we improve Candidate Joining Ratios? 8 useful ideas
Rima Sen
As organizations gear up to on-board more workforce in 2020 than in 2019 in growing markets, the harsh reality is that the ‘Job offer’ to ‘Candidate joining’ ratio is ever declining in such markets.
In a candidate driven market, the rules are created by candidates and not organizations. Talented candidates on average have more than one job offer, and the opportunity with several positive and compelling reasons holds an obvious chance of getting converted.
This leads to major anxiety amongst hiring leaders even after an offer is made to a candidate. It’s like waiting in suspense with fingers crossed, hoping that the candidate actually shows up on the agreed joining date. However, there are certain measures that organizations can adopt to improve their candidate joining ratios.
Here’s my list of top 8 useful ideas that can actually help in improving the possibility of a candidate joining the organization once an offer is made to him / her:
1. Fair and competitive Compensation & Benefits:
While working on this blog, I asked some of our recruiters what was the most compelling reason that makes a candidate stay through the recruitment rounds and join too. Not surprising, whether we like it or not, the first answer that majority echoed was: SALARY!
Often when a candidate chooses a different organization after having accepted an offer from another, the reason that’s shared is better Compensation & Benefits. To increase the offer to joining ratio, it is imperative to understand not only the expectation of the candidate with respect to overall pay and different components of the compensation, it is also critical to understand what competition will pay him / her.
Just being at par with industry standards doesn’t always help to get real talent. Offered pay which is calibrated to the value a candidate brings to the organization along with innovative compensation structures can help in convincing candidates to join the organization.
2. Alignment of Career objective with the opportunity:
If someone accepts an offer but is still hoping for other opportunities to materialise, it may be because of a lack of real or perceived alignment with one’s career path and objectives. The sad truth is that it’s not because the job opportunity is lacking but hiring leaders at times miss sharing the big picture and career path with a candidate.
If this were done right at the stage of hiring, then the comfort factor for the candidate would be much higher as he / she would know the opportunities available to chart their professional growth and he / she would probably look at the new role for a longer duration commitment.
3. Industry reputation of the Company and its growth:
If a future employee is not convinced about the reputation and growth of the company, he may definitely look around for other opportunities even after having accepted an offer (which kind of serves as an anchor).
Again, it’s advisable to share the company’s success, its highpoints and future growth with the future employee so that he / she has an idea of the vision of the company leading to a higher comfort factor in furthering his / her career with a growth oriented company.
4. Workplace Culture:
To help potential candidates understand the work culture, invite them to meet your team. If your culture allows for personal growth such as setting aside some time every month to do something that interests the candidate in his professional career, or programs for contributing to the society, then do introduce these concepts in the beginning as it helps in creating a positive and engaging work culture and assures that there will be an opportunity for well-rounded growth once he / she joins the organization.
5. Comfort factor with the reporting manager:
It’s known that one of the biggest reasons for an employee to leave is disagreement with the reporting manager. It is recommended that one does an informal meet with the reporting manager while accepting an offer. This helps in creating rapport and shedding unwarranted doubts before joining. In fact, making this informal meet as part of the hiring process is sure to help in increasing the candidates joining ratio.
6. Getting to know future colleagues:
While reporting manager is critical for one’s decision to join, knowing future colleagues helps in strengthening one’s opinion about joining the company. These are people one would spend hours daily while working together. While workplace culture is one aspect, it’s actually the people who make that culture come alive.
If there are any town halls or team outings planned, then the hiring leader should extend an invite to the prospective employee to join the same. In the absence of such plans, a structured program to introduce a candidate with future colleagues would help in creating a positive vibe.
7. Lesser time between offer and joining:
The more the time between offer extension and joining date, lesser are the chances of it getting converted. Why? Because there is huge competition to get the best hires, the chances of losing a candidate due to him / her getting something “better” in the waiting time than what you offered can cause you great loss. So, keeping the time in check is one important step in positively affecting the candidates’ joining ratio.
8. Constant communication:
Constant and timely communication is a critical way for a smooth transition from offer to joining. Sharing company updates or relevant knowledge pieces can help the candidate feel connected and better prepared on the actual day of joining the organization.
Even if a candidate ultimately decides not to enter your organization, talking to them and trying to understand what they felt didn’t work for them can provide great insights for future hires and can also help the recruiter in clarifying misunderstanding (if any) and may convince him / her again to accept the offer extended.
So, if you want to be surer about your hires converting into future employees, do try these 8 ideas. Even better, if you want to transform how you hire by using data and shorten the time from apply to hire, sign-up for your free trial of Expertite.Candidates dropping out increase your time to hire, leading to high opportunity costs such as loss of sales / revenue, delayed product launch, poor customer satisfaction and so on. Hence, it’s certainly worth the ROI.
About the author:
Rima is the Co-Founder of Expertite, a next-generation SaaS platform which brings Candidate Engagement, Automation & Analytics to Recruitment, making it Smarter, Faster and more Predictable. Expertite helps companies improve their candidate engagement by >40%, increase predictability by >30%, reduce time-to-offer by >25% and reduce costs by at least 10%.