The Art of Post-Offer Engagement: How to Secure Your Talent in the Critical Phase

You found the right candidate after multiple rounds of screening and interviews. You finalized the candidate and shared the offer letter post-negotiation. Even though they agreed on the final joining, on the day of joining the candidate didn’t show up. As a recruiter, experiencing this situation is demotivating and also impacts the business. Organizations aim for a high offer-to-join ratio and such a situation impacts it and also increases talent acquisition costs.

Possible reasons behind the candidate not turning up on the date of joining can be: the candidate got less engaged and started looking for other offers during his/ her notice period, their previous employer retained them, and the candidate changed his/her mind about switching jobs.

The job offer stage is a critical phase in the recruiting process. After spending time and resources on sourcing, screening, interviewing, and selecting candidates, you do not want to have candidate dropouts. This is why post-offer candidate engagement is so important.

During this period, candidates are evaluating if your company is the right fit for them. They are speaking with family and friends, negotiating offers, and considering counteroffers. With so much on their plates, you need to continue nurturing the relationship you’ve built and reinforce why your opportunity is the right choice. Effective post-offer engagement will increase job offer acceptance rates and prevent talent from slipping away.

Don’t make the mistake of “ghosting” candidates once an offer is extended. This can cause them to have doubts and change their minds. By maintaining open communication, providing helpful resources, and making them feel valued, you can secure your chosen talent during this critical window.

In this blog, we will discuss innovative strategies, and ideas to keep the candidates engaged post making offers. We will discuss in-depth parts like how you can build a strong connection with candidates, share engaging content with the candidates, overcome roadblocks to engagement, and more.

Building a Strong Connection with Candidates

Once the candidate accepts the offer, do not let the conversation go cold. It is important to ensure the candidate stays engaged and connected. For that, you can build a strong connection with the candidates. Here are some post-offer engagement activities to build a strong connection with candidates:

• Go beyond the automated engagement template- Send a handwritten card or thoughtful email congratulating them and sharing your excitement in having them join the company.
• Get an email sent by the hiring manager – You can also ask the manager to call or meet virtually to say congratulations
• Answer any questions: New candidate can be skeptical about many things, anticipate their concerns about the company and answer their queries
• Share welcome package – Mail a small welcome box with company swag, handwritten notes from team members, gift cards, and informative brochures.
• Assign a buddy – Connect the candidate with a trustworthy employee from the team who can act as a touchpoint, give insight, and answer their doubts.
• Office tour video- Try sharing a glimpse of the office with the candidate so that the excitement doesn’t die.
• Social media connections – Link up with the candidate on LinkedIn or follow them on Twitter and interact with their content respectfully
• Check in frequently – Don’t go silent. Regularly check in to reinforce your support and see if any questions have arisen. Support them through relocation assistance, WFH assistance, and more.
• Showcase company culture- It is a good idea to share employee success stories, team events, and company culture with the candidate. This builds excitement and a sense of belonging.
• Spotlight growth opportunities – Discuss development options, training, mentorship, and clear career paths that lie ahead.

Engaging Content for the Offer Stage

Once a candidate has received a job offer, you need to provide engaging content that informs, educates, and gets them excited to join your company. In this way, you can increase employee engagement. Here are some engagement content ideas that you can share:

• Share company bio – Highlight the company’s key executives and its vision, and mission statements.
• Introduce future colleagues and line managers: You can share the information about the team with which the candidate will be working and the manager under which the candidate would work.
• Office culture videos – Share fun videos that give a peek into your company culture.
• Testimonials – Collect and share positive testimonials from current employees about their experience.
• Benefits guide – Send an overview of all your generous benefit offerings like insurance, time off, perks, and retirement plans.
• Training program info – Provide details on development, mentorship, and educational opportunities to get them invested in growing their skills.
• Share onboarding resources: Share company handbooks, training materials, and helpful guides to ease the transition.
• Access to exclusive content: Intimate them and give them access to webinars, team forums, or online communities to make them feel they are also part of the organization.

Overcoming Roadblocks to Engagement

While you can always strategize candidate engagement plans, there are chances that you may face some common roadblocks that can prevent you from establishing a strong post-offer candidate engagement. Sharing some strategies that can help you improve candidate engagement in these cases:

• Siloed communication – To make sure the candidate does not come in any doubt, take proactive measures. If there are any delays at any part, ensure the same gets communicated to the candidates.
• Compelling counteroffers to the candidate: While it is always possible that a candidate can get a counteroffer from another company or the previous employer, make sure you highlight your company’s value proposition and tell them you are excited to have them onboard.
• Hiring manager too busy – Make candidate engagement during the offer window a priority across the company. Block time on calendars.
• Waiting on background check – Don’t let engagement slip during this time. Provide updates and reassure candidates.
• Stalled negotiation – Have an open negotiation process. Discuss reasonable compromises if needed to keep engagement positive.

Measuring Your Success and Continuous Improvement

While it is not easy to keep each finalized candidate engaged it can not be an overnight success. It’s important to track metrics that indicate whether your post-offer engagement strategy is successful, here is how you can measure your success and ensure continuous improvement in this regard:

• Job offer acceptance rate – What percentage of offers extended are accepted? Is this improving over time?
• Time to accept an offer – How long on average is it taking candidates to accept offers? Faster is better.
• Candidate NPS scores – Candidate Net Promoter Score (CNPS) is a metric that companies use to evaluate their candidate experience. Candidates are surveyed to understand their likelihood to recommend your company as a place to work. A score ranging from 0-10 indicates you are doing fine, and anything close to 50 and beyond shows that your company has made an impressive impression on the candidate.
• Withdrawal rate/Offer decline rate – How often are candidates withdrawing acceptances? Lower rates signal effective engagement.
• Onboarding completion – How many complete onboarding? High percentages show you secured and retained talent.
• Employee retention after 6 months – Are most employees staying at least 6 months? Poor retention may indicate disappointment post-hire.

Gather feedback via candidate surveys and take onboarding assessments to identify areas for improvement. Try more diversity in engagement methods – Mix up videos, testimonials, FAQs, etc, improve benefits education – provide more details and guidance around benefits offerings, clearer career development – show opportunities for long-term growth and training, refine your strategy based on metrics and feedback to maximize your talent securing ability. These were some post-offer engagement ideas and strategies that you can adopt to improve candidate engagement post-offer.

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