By Alvaro Chacon, founding partner and president at Stateside Co. Sourcing, retaining and managing stellar digital talent on your behalf.
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As a firm that provides staff augmentation services, my company is constantly looking to hire, retain and manage tech talent for firms in the U.S., and the competition for tech talent has only increased in recent years.
We consistently see candidates and job seekers apply to several jobs simultaneously and then let the new workplaces “compete” to offer the best salary and benefits. We have also seen candidates accepting job offers from us and then receiving multiple new offers during their notice period while they join our company or even during the onboarding period for our company.
We understand that the job market is aggressive at this time and that in the technology sector, highly sought-after job seekers and current team members will invariably receive multiple offers enticing them to move to “greener pastures.”
At Stateside, we believe the recruiting process is ongoing until the candidate has been hired and successfully onboarded. This usually takes about 90 days, depending on the position and seniority. You can address the above-mentioned concerns by clearly understanding what drives the candidate in the different stages of the recruiting process.
If the candidate is an active and talented job seeker, assume that they will receive multiple job offers and understand that they will gravitate toward the ones that entice them the most. During initial interviews, listen attentively to what the candidate wants and practice empathy to understand what’s important to them. You can then determine whether you can offer a work environment that will enable them to thrive.
For most candidates, salary is just one of the multiple elements driving job satisfaction. Some of the other factors you should consider include autonomy, flexibility, career path opportunities, emotional safety, additional benefits, belonging to a team and work-life balance.
Once you determine that the candidate is a good fit for the role and the firm, actively encourage them to evaluate all other offers they have before accepting yours. Candidates should take time to carefully consider which offer suits them the most. Understand that the candidate has to make the choice that is best for them and, in the current job market, it’s wise for them to look for the most advantageous opportunity.
After the candidate accepts the offer and your offer letter is signed, immediately prepare to have them join the company by showing them what the onboarding process will look like and then introducing them to the team. This is important so that they feel a sense of belonging even before they join the company. The first day at a new workplace can be one of the most anxiety-inducing days in someone’s career, so making them feel welcome should be your top priority.
We have recently noticed more candidates trying to renegotiate their salaries or benefits after accepting a job offer or even well into the onboarding process. On some occasions, this reveals some criteria that the candidate forgot to mention are important to them, such as some additional holidays, vacation dates they already committed to or some other special work schedule requests. In my experience, these are fair most of the time and it would be in your best interest to try to accommodate them to the best of your abilities.
In other situations, an attempt to renegotiate is based on more critical requests like a significant salary increase based on the grounds of a new job offer. This is a potential red flag and a sign that the candidate will constantly try to leverage other job offers to increase their salary in the future. Consider these situations carefully.
Allowing salary increases to candidates or our newer team members because they threaten to leave can understandably create resentment among the more loyal staff with more tenure and sometimes higher skills. Our experience is that these candidates tend to stay in their jobs for only a short period of time, thus increasing their employers’ recruiting and onboarding costs. When this happens, we usually let the candidate accept the other job offer and are grateful when this happens during the initial days and not later in the candidate’s career, when the costs of replacing them would be higher.
I believe a fair and effective recruiting process comes from empathy with the candidate, understanding what drives them, and ensuring we are a good match for each other before offering them a position on our team. We always say that it is equally important that the candidate is a good fit for the company and that our company and culture are a good fit for the candidate.
