Hi All,

I wanted to discuss a common problem which almost coprorates & consultants are facing somewhere at time of Recruitments.

For some plant level critical positions we are working too hard for headhunting to get suitable candidates. Everythings is going most fine from Screening to Recruitment & Offer Letter. But suddenly candidates are decling to join the company before a day or two from their joining date. They are infact using Offer Letter at present employer for salary increament.

In this situation the Corporate & Consultant both have to face difficulty. This is a common exprience of almost HR Persons.

Can anybody have any solution of it? Or is there any special kind of test to know thier seriousness about new oppurtunities or changing jobs.

Hope this problem's solution is going to reduce headache of HR Persons.

Hope to here you soon.

Meera

It's more of a demand supply problem. Manpower demand in some sectors and for certain functions is booming leading to this problem. One of the ways one could reduce last minute declines is to make the applicant join as soon as possible after making the offer. However, be ready to bear the cost of his / her notice period.

Due to scarcity of experienced professionals many companies have started making even "counter offers" as soon as the employee resigns and try to retain them. We have experienced number of such cases in the last 6 months or so.

Hi Meera,

Q. I wanted to discuss a common problem which almost coprorates & consultants are facing somewhere at time of Recruitments.

For some plant level critical positions we are working too hard for headhunting to get suitable candidates. Everythings is going most fine from Screening to Recruitment & Offer Letter. But suddenly candidates are deninding to join the company before a day or two from their joining date. They are infact using Offer Letter at present employer for salary increament.

In this situation the Corporate & Consultant both have to face difficulty. This is a common exprience of almost HR Persons.

Can anybody have any solution of it? Or is there any special kind of test to know thier seriousness about new oppurtunities or changing jobs.

A: You have raised a very pertinent question relevant to the Industry and we recommend the following initiatives :

1.The offer letter should have the clause that if the candidate fails to submit the copy of the acceptance of resignation within 7 or 10 days from the date of acceptance, then the terms and conditions of offer letter would be considered null and void.

2. Offer letter not to disclose the compensation package or the wordings can be "as discussed the compensation details would be given on your joining our organization".

3. Review the interviewing process especially the Red Flags as one should be able to discern and identify the candidates who are serious about the change and those who are just testing their market value.

4. Attractive joining bonus on joining the company infact it should be factored over a period of time say 3 to 6 months interval to ensure his/her buy-in and overcome his dissonance.

5. Implement a basket of options or flexible compensation plan.

6. Ask the candidate to drop in to your office one afternoon before he joins.

7. Keep the prospective employees informed of the current developments, events & news of the company through e-mails.

8. Lastly, pre-empt competition by working on pre-joining retention strategies.

If you have any questions/queries, please feel to contact me.

Best wishes,

Kaushik

While what kaushik has mentioned could be tried out at junior levels but these measures may repell some of the reasonably experienced candidates to join a company, specially as some of them may be attracting more than one offer in today's scenario. Any conditions imposed on such candidates are perceived as unprofessional by them.

However, at junior level some of these measures may certainly help in pre-empting an applicant's intent while an offer is made. I feel that they are valuable suggestions for these level of applicants.

Dear lieu, kaushik, quest, 

Thanks for your valuable suggestions. As we are well aware that every company have different HR Policies, Sometimes they consider suggestion of consultants sometimes not. Its all really depends on thier systems.

Am agree with kaushik's point mentioned that

2. Offer letter not to disclose the compensation package or the wordings can be "as discussed the compensation details would be given on your joining our organization".

This is a best things we can do & coincidently our Recruitment Manager have suggested the same last evening when I was discussing the topic with staff after mailing to group.

If offer letter is not disclosing package details, there wont be any problem from candidates for ditching. Without figure in offer letter they wont able to show it in present employer & increase the salary. Same way we are using for our own staff recruitments which is effective & success in almost cases.

Thanks for your valuable reverts.

Meera