Recruiters know, making a placement isn’t as easy as just matching a candidate’s experience with the required skills of a job. You have to unearth passive candidates that fit all the minutiae your client wants. You then have to make the candidates realize this opportunity is worth leaving their current one for, you have to scrutinize their resume, prep them for interviews, and coordinate all the interviews. Once an offer is made, you can’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet, as you hold your breath that the candidate doesn’t receive or accept a counteroffer from their current employer. Counteroffers are an age-old problem in the recruiting industry, and something that we are seeing more and more of these days in a candidate-friendly market, especially when working with in-demand top talent. It’s up to the recruiter, as part of the whole interview process, to discuss and really dig down and find the truth of what the candidate would do if their company presented a counteroffer to them.

Here’s some suggestions from some of NPAworldwide’s member recruiters on how to handle the counteroffer situation: Read the rest of this entry »

In the last year we have seen ever increasing competition for executive talent. What was once the finish line has now been moved. The “offer” and “acceptance” were once the focus of recruiters’ and search professionals’ attention. The acceptance now just marks the point where danger of candidate loss begins. The period between offer and start date represents a new challenge for future employer and search team as counteroffers are frequently made. Read the rest of this entry »

Candidates and counteroffers – it’s a recruitment conundrum as old as time. Right now, though, with plentiful jobs and candidates in woefully-short supply, counteroffers are at perhaps an all-time high. Recruiters need to assume that employers WILL counteroffer your candidates as part of their retention efforts, because they know replacements are simply too hard to find. And that means you simply must openly and honestly discuss this issue early and often to avoid any deal-killing surprises. Read the rest of this entry »

One of our recruitment network’s members recently shared that she experienced not 1, not 2, but 3 different candidates accepting counteroffers from their companies. This is an age-old problem in the recruiting industry, and something that we are seeing more and more of these days in a candidate-friendly market, especially when working with strong candidates. It’s up to the recruiter, as part of the whole interview process, to discuss and really dig down and find the truth of what the candidate would do if their company presented a counteroffer to them.

Here’s some suggestions our other members gave on how to handle the counteroffer situation: Read the rest of this entry »

On a recent trading group call, Scott Love of GreatRecruiterTraining.com gave a presentation on counteroffers. For a recruiter, it is crushing to have a candidate who’s already accepted your client’s offer renege and accept a counteroffer from their current employer. You saw the light at the end of the tunnel, the placement fee was almost in your pocket, and now it’s back to the drawing board. What Scott Love told recruiters was: an easy way to keep candidates from taking counteroffers is to prevent the process. But how can you prevent it?

Have a conversation with the candidate — not the night before they’re putting their notice in, but earlier in the process, before or after the first interview. It behooves a recruiter to assess the risk of any candidate they are considering presenting to their client considering a counteroffer. Read the rest of this entry »