Making an Offer

Making an Offer

Making the Decision
It is essential that all parties discuss and review the available information before making the recruitment decision, to ensure that a genuinely suitable candidate has been identified. Managers are encouraged to leave a position vacant temporarily rather than compromise on the agreed selection standards.

During this phase it is important that the interviewers consider the following:

• Focus on the selection criteria
• Rank candidates according to performance against essential and desirable qualifications;
• Assess all information - resume, application form, interview, referee reports, results of pre employment tests.
• Record decisions made and reasons for them. Avoid value judgments.

Make your decision based on facts and not opinions unless the reference checks tell you otherwise. Intuition plays a role, but this can be checked based on the information you have gathered throughout the process.

Once the decision has been taken to proceed with an offer of employment, the Recruitment Consultant (if using an agency) or the Manager (if advertising directly) should make a verbal offer to the candidate. In the event that the remuneration that is being offered is not acceptable to the candidate, the issue must be referred back to the Finance/Administration Manager and/or the Chief Executive Officer for resolution before any further discussions take place with the candidate.

The Letter of Offer
Preparation of the Letter of Offer is be completed by the Finance/ Administration Manager and the Manager recruiting is required to sign it. Two copies of the Letter of Offer will be forwarded to the candidate with the original requiring signature and return by the candidate as an indication of acceptance of the offer. Once received by Company, an announcement can be made by the Manager.

Advising Unsuccessful Candidates
Once the candidate has accepted the job offer, the recruiting [mamager_term] is responsible for advising the unsuccessful interviewed candidates by phone (if the direct advertising medium is used) or informing the recruitment consultant (if an agency is used). The Finance/Administration Manager is responsible for providing a letter to those candidates that were advised by phone.

Company suggests the following be considered when advising unsuccessful candidates:

• The feedback given to all candidates should be based on the criteria of the position
• Be prompt in providing feedback
• Be clear, brief and positive
• Be honest but sensitive so you maintain candidate’s self esteem
• Try to anticipate the person’s reaction and any questions he/she might have.
• If you are informing unsuccessful candidates by phone, focus on providing factual information i.e. how they did/didn’t meet the criteria and be able to substantiate this by the candidate’s demonstrated behaviours.
• End the conversation on a positive note
• If an internal candidate:
  • The feedback should be more detailed than that provided to external candidates to ensure the employee fully understands the decision made. This feedback ensures we retain our valued employees enabling them to take action that may make them better next time;
  • Ensure that you can meet with person in a private, uninterrupted area;
  • Explain the purpose of the meeting;
  • Using the interview results as your basis, cover the main positive and negative feedback areas;
  • Ensure that by the end of the discussion, the candidate is aware of the overall reason for not being selected;
  • Try not to labour on each point. Your judgement is only based on the information obtained from the interview;
  • Summarise the discussion.

The employee’s Manager should be present when providing feedback as they are jointly responsible for the development of the employee’s training and development plan

If using the services of an agency, feedback should be provided to the consultant who will communicate that to the candidate. Consultants should communicate with unsuccessful candidates within 24 hours of being debriefed.

Unless unsuccessful candidates have provided consent for Company to keep their details, all such material shall be destroyed within 24 hours of the successful candidate accepting the position with Company.