Over the past year, I have interacted with nearly 100 techies who were offered by our clients in their tech hiring. 50 of them accepted and well 50 refused to join. We have one of the best offers to joining ratios in the tech hiring industry. While each and every experience with a candidate was a unique one, we can draw some meta conclusions which has helped us improve this ratio.
Well, not all tech candidates refuse an offer for a higher salary. There are a plethora of reasons that play a role: • Is the package commensurate with my experience
• Who are the people I will be working with
• What are the projects that I would be working on
• What will be my growth trajectory in this organisation etc.
Importance of JDs in tech hiring
Let’s start this conversation right from the Job Description stage. JDs in my opinion should be lucrative consisting of not just role but also culture, team and what is expected of a developer who joins them. A simple bio about the founders, a linkedin link to meet the team you would be working with and a couple of photos that depict fun and open culture in the office can attract tech talent who want to pursue a challenging career in startups.
Candidate engagement and clarity of interview process
Now that you have attracted great talent who have shown interest in your company, it becomes your job to keep them engaged. Interviews should be clear, concise and well fast. The rounds of interviews should be clear in the heads of all stakeholders involved, from the HR to the Hiring Manager to the panel to the CTO to finally the candidates. If a candidate is not aware of what the round entails, they would most likely not clear it or will not be interested to clear it.
Prompt interviews and feedback
Moreover another major drop off point for candidates is delayed interviews and reviews. Once a candidate enters the system, all their rounds of interviews should be conducted in a span of 10 days. Anything beyond that, your clock is ticking when the candidate might drop off. Your HR must keep engaging with the candidate and provide them the feedback on time and keep them updated about the next round of interviews, if necessary. The feedback for the interviews should also be captured lucidly. Never keep a candidate hanging, even if it is a negative feedback, please convey the same to the candidate. Even you wouldn’t like to be on the other side, right?
Explain offer Beyond CTC
While you gave a glimpse of your culture in the JD, it is now time to show them the same. While negotiating with an offer, we must offer beyond CTC. Tell them how easily they can work with the CTO, tell them what their growth will be in a year’s time, how fast they can grow in this company, what is the average tenure in your company? All of these play a huge role while negotiating CTC. You can introduce them to the team you are hiring for and maybe take all of them out for coffee, you can show how a person joining at the same level has grown in the past year and most importantly how many people have joined your company in the last six months and maybe have a conversation with them. That will show how your company is perceived by people who were in the candidate’s shoes just a few months back. This trick has worked like magic for us.
Post offer engagement
Finally, after the offer is released and till the candidate joins, it is your duty to keep the candidates engaged. Keep a weekly catch-up call with the team, talk to them about their plans of relocation (if any) and if you could help them with the process, send them goodies during this period. The more engaged a candidate is with the company, the lesser the chance of rejection and even if they decline, they give you the opportunity to match up the offer. If your budget permits, then why not?
Conclusion
Of course, this is not exhaustive and neither can I guarantee a hundred percent joining if you fulfil all the above, however, I can assure you that your percentage will significantly increase. We should start treating the candidates as potential teammates from early on and a part of the team as soon as the offers are released. Only if we can establish a connection with them can we make them join our company.