Our guest blogger is Jason Elias of Elias Recruitment in Sydney, Australia. Elias Recruitment is a specialist legal recruitment consultancy, finding lawyers for law firms, not-for-profits and corporates, across Australia. Jason is the Secretary/Treasurer of the NPAworldwide Board of Directors and received our Chairman’s Award in 2014. Jason is also a Fellow of the peak recruitment industry body in Australasia the RCSA (Recruitment & Consulting Services Association).
Whilst I am sure “love at first sight” does exist and my wife swears she knew we were going to get married the day we met- I would not advise anyone to marry the first person they dated.
Likewise, it is imperative when you counsel your candidates to take the best job offer, not the first one (especially when the first offer is not yours). There is no secret that the job market for candidates across many industries is the best it has been for a long time.
However let me share the recent story of Kim (not her real name). Kim was keen to get a new role and had a good CV and background. She was invited to interview with several clients both directly and through our agency.
Just after the second interview with our client, she received a job offer from another firm. They were pressuring her into accepting and Kim thought – a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. She wanted to take the offer.
We advised Kim to get all the offers on the table and make an informed decision when all the facts were laid out. In the end our client then came back and made her what was a better long term career opportunity and she agreed. The money was actually pretty similar. She has since found out that the other firm would not have been the right place for her anyway.
Now of course there was a financial element to us wanting her to take the role with our client but hand on heart I believe that was the better option for her.
So my suggestion is to understand candidates should be selective about where they want to work and do your due diligence first to make sure you send them to the right place and they don’t marry the first person they date.