(And What To Do About Him or Her)
Companies that have been out of the job market due to the recession, restructuring or both are returning in increasing numbers – and are discovering an alarming new trend: Despite one of the most abundant professional labor pools since the Great Depression, more and more “sure-fire” candidates are rejecting offers at the very last moment.
During the go-go years of the 1970s and 1980s, the ratio of offers extended to positions accepted was very close. If an employer could offer an equal or better position at a higher salary, chances were extremely high that the offer would be accepted. With a few perks thrown in, the result was almost a foregone conclusion – unless a more attractive offer from another company came along.
Now, however, the ratio in many instances is spreading as an increasing number of candidates go through lengthy interviewing processes, only to stay with their current employers.
While many walk-away candidates are reluctant to reveal the real reasons why, an analysis by the Sanford Rose Associates executive recruiting system has identified three kinds of candidates that are likely to create problems for the unsuspecting company.
Corporate Survivors
Common sense might suggest that employees who have struggled through a series of corporate restructurings, downsizings, “rightsizings” and similar euphemisms would be prime targets for changing jobs. In fact, these individuals often regard themselves as survivors who have triumphed over adversity and may secretly thank their dear departed colleagues for leaving them a job. Happy to have won and gun-shy about tempting fate, they are scared to trade the devil they know for the devil they don’t. Unfortunately for employers, the Corporate Survivor’s anxiety may be well concealed throughout the interviewing process – until the offer comes.
Homesteaders
One’s future with any corporation is a roll of the dice, say an increasing number of potential candidates, who have begun to place quality-of-life issues ahead of corporate success and pecuniary gain. Since the 1990s began, employees at all levels have become more reluctant to chase what they view as the Impossible Dream at the expense of either their families or life’s simple pleasures. These Homesteaders like the house they’ve bought, the neighborhood in which they live, the schools their children attend, the proximity of nearby cultural and recreational attractions, etc. And as they and their spouses postpone having children until their thirties (or even forties), many have the financial wherewithal to “just say no” when the offer arrives for new employment in a different location. It may not be “macho” to admit this to an interviewer, so other excuses may be given.
Dual Breadwinners
Employees with spouses who also work should come as no surprise to today’s companies, since dual-income families represent over half the U.S. population. When a job involves relocation companies all too frequently assume that the “trailing spouse” (particularly if female) will gladly come along. In fact, the other partner may have a very good job that he or she is reluctant to leave – or will have difficulty replacing in the new location. Accordingly, the potential employer who ignores the problem of finding employment for the trailing spouse may well watch a job offer go sour at the last minute. Also, in many dual-income families, spouses may share a variety of child-rearing responsibilities (such as picking up a child from day care) that interfere with an employee’s historic willingness to work late or travel frequently. Since inquiries about marital status can lead to sex discrimination claims, employers must tread carefully in determining factors that might prevent a candidate from relocating, traveling, working long hours or otherwise filling all requirements of the job.
How Companies Exacerbate the Situation
If bodies were the only consideration, the vast number of unemployed and underemployed people would lend credence to the belief that it’s a Buyer’s Market today. (Wal-Mart can advertise for new “associates” at any of its stores and watch lines stretch around the block.) At the professional, managerial or executive level, however, companies seek that “needle in a haystack” who combines desired skills and experience with the personal characteristics that will ensure success in a particular corporate culture.
The failure to anticipate, identify and respond to those hidden – or even readily apparent – traits that cause a “perfect” candidate to walk away will only result in wasted money, wasted time and disappointment. The candidate goes south, while the company scratches its figurative head.
Wise employers will therefore examine their cur-rent interviewing procedures. In simpler times, the interview process was primarily a mating dance, where each party tried to appear to be the other’s perfect match. Companies and candidates today, instead, should be on a fact-finding mission about each other. All too often both want to sell now and ask questions later. In this scenario, there’s precious little opportunity to surface nagging concerns and address them head on – not to mention in time.
How Professional Recruiters Can Help
The professional recruiting consultant can help employers improve their offer-to-acceptance ratios by serving as a third-party listener, advisor, negotiator and coach who can ferret out hidden issues in time to resolve them or reveal them as probable “deal-killers”.
As a result of working with scores of candidates, week in and week out, recruitment professionals know that the decision to accept a job offer is the product of a long string of previous decisions – for example: Can I afford to leave (or stand the stress of leaving) my current job? Will my family be supportive? Can I sell my home? Do the benefits outweigh the risks? What about my spouse’s career? How will the new company treat me? And so on.
In the role of personal counselor and “honest broker”, the third-party recruiter can get the job candidate to discuss these and similar issues with a degree of frankness that can provide an early warning of potential trouble and at the same time permit exploration by both sides of potential solutions. For example, the Corporate Survivor may need to be re-assured of the hiring company’s future stability and concern for employees. The Homesteader, probably with his or her family, may need an in-depth tour of the new employer’s community and the many attractions it offers. And Dual Breadwinners may need to learn of the employer’s concern for both their careers – and willingness to be of help.
In some cases, there may be no solution. (The candidate whose daughter has just entered her senior year at high school could well be a lost cause.) In no case, however, should the factors that kill an offer come as a last-minute surprise. This is not to say that every job offer will result in acceptance by the candidate, but turn-downs should not occur for reasons that could have been identified early in the interviewing process.
The factors that cause job offers to be accepted – recognition, respect, reward, opportunity for advancement, etc. – are still as valid as ever. Given a reasonable understanding of the responsiveness to the needs and concerns of today’s candidates, the prospective employer can then turn his or her attention to those positive selling factors that can close the deal and land the perfect catch.