How to manage the dreaded counter-offer

Learn how to prepare for and then manage a counter-offer given to a candidate you’re looking to hire. Hays’ Karen Young provides all the insights you need.

Managing a counter-offer: Key insights

There are a few stages to consider when preparing for, and ultimately managing a counter-offer. As hiring managers, if you follow these steps and nurture each stage of interaction with your candidate, you put your business in a great position to eliminate the possibility of them accepting the counter-offer. 1.

1. Before an interview – There are steps you can take to weed out candidates who are likely to be more open to a counter-offer than others. Ensuring you don’t waste time interviewing candidates who are only using you for a pay rise at their current employer is essential. 2.
2. During an interview – The questions you ask during the interview and the light you shed on your business, can play an important role in limiting the likelihood of a candidate turning their back on you, should you offer them the position.
3. After an interview – Just because the candidate has accepted your offer, doesn’t mean they will not be open to a counter-offer. Keeping the candidate engaged whilst they serve their notice period can help you avoid a counter-offer.

Counter-offers: A background

Counter-offers are an unavoidable reality for most hiring managers. If you haven’t experienced a candidate being counter-offered yet, then chances are you will at some stage.

Whilst you can’t stop an employer from making a counter-offer, you can minimise the chances of the candidate accepting this counter-offer by taking certain steps throughout each stage of the interview process, as well as during the candidate’s notice period.

Steps to reduce the likelihood of a counter-offer

In this blog I will help you manage the dreaded counter-offer, in the following stages.

Pre-interview – Remove candidates who are likely to counter-offer

I would advise working with a recruiter who can compile a short list of interview candidates. The recruiter can identify those who are purely interested in an increase in salary but are otherwise happy in their role. Upon meeting the candidates, the recruiter can ask each one some qualifying questions about their reasons for leaving their job, such as:

• What are your reasons for leaving your current position?
• Have you told your employer of your concerns?
• Under what circumstances would you stay in your role?

If a candidate is only looking to make a move for more money, the recruiter can advise that they go back to their employer and ask for this before choosing to move on. This leaves you with candidates who are at least a little less likely to get swayed by a counter-offer.

During the interview: Appeal to the candidate’s motivations

Now that you have a shortlist, you should feel confident that they are sat in front of you because they genuinely want to move on from their current employer.

The interview is the perfect time to get to know more about what these reasons are, and what the candidate is looking for in their next opportunity and future career.

To help you determine this, I would advise asking the below questions during the interview:

• What do you look for in an employer?
• What are your career goals for the upcoming year and beyond?
• Why are you looking for a new role?
• What appeals to you about this opportunity?

From here, you will be far better placed to tailor the way you pitch your job opportunity to them. For instance, if the candidate’s focus is on better training and personal and career development, you should spend time sharing stories of how people at your company have advanced their careers. Describe the scope for progression in this role and provide them with some real-life role models to meet as part of the interview process.

Ultimately, you want the candidate to walk away from the interview feeling that this opportunity ticks all the boxes that their current employer can’t.

Create a sense of belonging during the interview

Even if the role you’re recruiting for genuinely appeals to the candidate’s motivations for leaving, they may still take a counter-offer from their existing employer. Staying somewhere they know is the simpler and safer option.

However, there are other tactics you can deploy during the interview itself which will decrease the risk of a counter-offer being accepted. Firstly, try to paint a picture of what it would be like to work at your company. Give specific details about what this role entails and what a typical day in the office looks like. You can also bring the opportunity to life by describing their future colleagues, as well as the team.

This will help to get a better idea of the company culture – which is hugely important to many jobseekers.

Stay mindful of the language that you use so as not to make the candidate feel like too much of an outsider. For instance, instead of referring to the team as tight-knit or close, you would say they work closely together, but balance this out by emphasising how they welcome new starters and socialise.

You can also swap out phrases like “the successful candidate would be…” for phrases such as “you would be…” so that they can imagine themselves actually working in the role. The key is to try and remove some of that fear of the mystery for the candidate, so that they don’t feel inclined to play it safe and stay with their current employer if given this option.

Keep the candidate engaged during their notice period

Once the candidate has accepted your offer, and they have handed in their notice, it’s time to change the nature of your relationship. Switch from a transactional relationship to a personal one, which keeps the candidate excited for this opportunity.

You should personally call the candidate yourself to congratulate them on getting the job. From this point, invite them to any important company business events, team outings or appropriate social events. It would also be a good idea to send them any induction documents and an itinerary of their first couple of weeks so that they can start to feel truly integrated. If equipment needs to be ordered, checking with them and keeping them up to date on this can also make someone feel welcome and involved.

Remember, the candidate can still get counter-offered at any time during their notice period. It’s crucial that you develop a connection quickly. Keep the lines of communication open and ensure they feel involved in the business before day one – so that the reasons why they accepted the role are continually reinforced during their notice period.

Have your backup offer ready to go

Creating an interview and onboarding experience that engages the candidate can certainly minimise their likelihood of taking a counter-offer. However, it might be worth your while to have a contingency plan just in case the candidate finds themselves being swayed by their current employer.

Perhaps you could agree to flexible working, more annual leave or immediate enrolment into a professional training programme that they have been wanting to do for some time?

Rest assured that if the candidate is showing signs of accepting a counter-offer, your recruiter will be taking steps to make sure that they are making the right decision – reminding the candidate why they chose to move elsewhere in the first place, relaying their own reasoning back to them. I think from this point onwards, you have to respect the candidate’s decision, safe in the knowledge that you and the recruiter have done all you reasonably can.

Managing counter-offers. What’s next for your business?

You can’t control what another employer chooses to do in order to keep their best talent. What you can do is create an engaging, inclusive hiring experience, which showcases all the ways in which your employer value proposition (EVP) meets their career needs.

Hays can help you improve your hiring experience and EVP. Get in touch today to start the conversation.