There has been a long standing debate about responsibility & accountability within the corporate environment and we’re quite familiar with the blame game. There are several reasons as to why people engage in the blame game one of the many reasons being either insufficient information due to lack of clarity in ones duties and responsibilities.

In light of the scenario playing out in various corporate atmosphere we @SourcingAdda decided to have a discussion on, “Whose Responsibility is Offer Drop? On 2 parameters namely;

1. Is offer drop the responsibility of the Recruiter or Recruitment Team?

2. Is it the complete responsibility of all the stakeholders involved?”

As per our Bangalore Group Member Jiten’s suggestion where we’ll highlight the key take away pointers right after the discussion that went by so here goes…

The conversation above clearly shows that we’ve had quite a discussion and an enlightening one at that. We’ve certainly got different perspectives to both sides and we’re sure that if you’ve read this far you definitely found something interesting to add to your knowledge. We’re sure that you’ve received an overload of information and you’re looking for the key take a ways to assist you so here goes…

Where the responsibility lies

• A good deal of responsibility lies with the recruiter and the concerned department lead but sometimes despite our best of efforts some candidates back out.
• It is the responsibility of the people involved in the selection of the candidate
• Departments will always point fingers towards Talent Acquisition
• As far as responsibility goes it should be the Recruiter and Recruitment Team as they are engaging the applicants.
• Offer Reject - can be acceptable and Recruitment team is to take the blame
• It is the Recruiter’s and the Recruitment team's responsibility to avoid offer drops

Identify the reasons for Candidate Back-outs

Identify the factors affecting their decision to join like -  

            a)      Compensation,

            b)      Relocation,

            c)       Personal Reasons,

            d)      Facilities,

            e)      Security aspect or Transportation

• Find out the reasons for candidates dropping out to bring down the ratio
• Introspect to find factors that are prevalent in the organisation that may affect their decision to join
• The RCA can indicate that the impression you had was wrong 
• Offer Dropout is a produce of Lack of Candidate Engagement which includes the selection process, pre and post offer expectations setting and post offer interaction.
• Accepting or dropping the offer purely depends on the attitude of the candidate
• People fail to understand that a consultant is just as good as an employer since they don't look for the candidates only for the closure and to earn money.
• Sometimes there might be a miscommunication from the Recruiter's side or the Candidate's attitude
• Employing or getting jobs to people is a service that Recruiter’s provide
• If the Candidate recruited sticks to the firm for more than at least 3 years it’s an achievement
• The issue is just one side of an entire industry
• When retaining a candidate or approaching one serving their notice period with another opportunity which is financially or role wise a better one than what they are already holding they will consider the new opportunity.
• In such a scenario it leads them to dropping out of the offer already accepted
• Communication is a major aspect as sometimes a Candidate gives a different picture but portrays something else at the interview, which we aren't aware of.
• Sometimes when the Candidate knows about the CTC offered for a particular position, they obviously start close to that even if they are drawing almost 50% less than what is allocated.
• Even after setting and understanding the expectations, the time period sometimes is so long, that the expectations and situation of the Candidate changes or is lured with something better than what they currently have.
• The luring at times convinces the Candidate that what they have in hand is not as per their aspirations.

Develop the skill sets and techniques required

• Most Recruiters lack the negotiation skills which is the root cause of offer drop out
• You cannot categorise all the skills in the same bucket
• Each skill has to be handled differently
• Understand the desperation and motive for a job change in the first screening itself
• Be ready with a pipeline to fall back on
• The fear of losing the candidate prompts a Recruiter to extend the offer without negotiating hard
• Without having multiple bargaining rounds in HR can also affect candidate retention
• Symptoms of active candidate will be:

             a)      They will proactively call or e - mail Recruiters

             b)      Say the exact reason for change 

             c)       Candidates who are jobless and looking for relocation will be sure shot

• To be on safer side it's advisable to have 2 candidates in pipeline; one you can offer while you keep the other as a backup.
• The backup Candidate is one who doesn’t fit the role due to a Lakh or two Lakhs
• Then if the first Candidate backs out normally the business agrees to increase the budget to avoid wastage of time.
• Mostly a Monetary Bond; in India it is easily breakable
• If you do not release Candidates on a bond basis they or you can face legal challenges
• ‘One Position, One Offer Model’ is gone you need to have a Plan B in place
• Set the expectations in advance to avoid later issues

Learn to accept certain truths

• Companies try to bring down the offer to drop out ratio but it is the most difficult task
• 90% of the decision made by candidates while accepting an offer more often than not compensation is the main factor.
• There are two factors for a candidate

            a)      Push

            b)      Pull

• Just having 65% offer to joining ratio isn’t an indication that there is a pull factor
• You will have instances where people have used offers to negotiate deals elsewhere
• Different reasons lead a candidate to say no to the offer
• Most don't even inform that they are not joining due to loss of an opportunity
• Candidates get hints of onsite opportunities from current employers or hear word of immediate ones from another company.
• Offer rejected can be controlled but if it is an offer renege then it's alarming
• You will have a lot of candidates backing out at the last minute due to personal reasons
• You will encounter candidates that never pick up the call again
• Ultimately you cannot force a candidate to join
• All you can do is make the person feel valued if it will ensure that they at least inform you in case they decide not to join.
• In spite of your efforts to make a Candidate feel valued it will have its limitations one being not meeting the CTC expectations
• You will have Candidates absconding even after they join
• Know that the interested Candidate will return your missed call for sure
• Realise that’s it’s the Candidates market so in spite of your efforts it’s their career and life’s decision and you cannot put a price on that besides they are in charge.
• Irrespective of your efforts in convincing Candidates it rolls down to their mind set at the end of the day.
• When engagement is right there would be a bond and when there’s a bond there’s nothing called informing.
• Every bond usually has a clause and you can make it work out for fresher to some extent
• If you reach out to Candidates serving their notice period, you have to accept and face the fact that someone else may reach out to ours.
• Realise that most Candidate will not tell you exactly what they are looking for or the reasons for them it’s up to you to pick up the hints and clues based on observation and expressed behaviour.
• From the HR perspective we can set up rules but from the on business front people will not agree since candidate will become bill able resource and delivery will be most important thus everyone will break the rules for survival as businesses are billable.
• Businesses need to accept risks as well hence accepting the risk of a Candidate dropping out at last minute is unavoidable.
• It will always be a give and take relationship
• Unless we stop pursuing already offered candidates then we will have drop outs.
• Candidates know that they become valuable while serving notices and they exploit that importance which is probably human nature.

Solutions to Candidate Backouts

• Have a system of assigning buddies, engaging the candidate if the joining period is long
• Use technology to monitor the selection process to find out the status of the Candidate selection
• Use the RCA as it will let you know:

            a)      Whether the Organisation sold the job,

            b)      If a competitive remuneration was offered,

            c)       If proper handholding was done,

            d)      Whether the standard Operating procedure while sourcing for the final selection was followed

• Send candidates who don’t respond for more than 2 weeks after the offer rolled out a withdrawal of offer email with a cc to the business partner and the consultant; and the candidate will respond to the email for fear of being blacklisted.
• Anticipating their next move from the 1^st interaction with them
• Be ready with a counter offer in case the offer dropout is based on the mechanism of the organization
• Decide the level of engagement with Candidates based on the profile offered
• The more you engage with the candidate the more you know
• A candidate is less likely to drop out if the Recruiter guides them on how the opportunity would help them to advance in their career which goes a long way in building trust.
• Counter offers are usually compensation based but post offer interaction is the key
• Offer on - site opportunity to the candidate's current employer to retain them
• Several miniature activities together are called engagement
• As a Recruiter; the face of the company, you deal with human beings and not commodities
• Understand and act accordingly with candidates instead of pushing them around in the name of chasing targets.
• Just a call or two from the business to the new candidate before joining makes the candidate feel like they are valued and the organisation is looking forward to them join and works for senior level hiring. 
• Getting the hiring Managers in the picture makes a difference
• Roping in the hiring Manager to conduct connect calls as a part of the post offer management process makes a difference. 
• It has beautifully worked for mid and leadership level hiring
• Be it a consultant or the HR at a Corporate ensuring that a potential resource be shortlisted  or hired for the position
• There needs to be a continuous communication from both ends 
• There would be different factors which influence a Candidate to accept or reject the offer
• Right kind of engagement is one influencing factor where involving business is essential
• Involving their ex co-workers, referrers engaging their personal factors in our discussions especially the emotion buttons are the key.
• Presenting it as a win - win situation for them
• A personal discussion with the Candidate gives us space to engage with them strongly
• As an industry, we need to set some rules and guidelines regarding whom to approach and whom not to
• You may not be successful in changing the mind set of Candidates but as one industry you can surely set few rules to be followed by every organization which is similar to the no poaching policy.
• Try Sourcing Candidates with no offer as this will reduce offer drops altogether

Well this brings our enlightening discussion to an end where we can say for certain that it was quite a discussion with a lot of key take away pointers to add to your knowledge and think about. So if you aren’t a part of these live discussions for instance Bell Curve Performance Management System a boon or bane? Then you now know what you are missing out on.

Therefore, be sure to follow us @SourcingAdda  for real time updates to our upcoming events and activities. In the meantime make sure you leave your views or requests to join our WhatsApp Groups in the comments section or DM (Twitter) us @SourcingAdda with your contact no. & location and our representative will get back to you.