Tool 6. LEARNING FROM JOB OFFERS WITH POST-OFFER SURVEYS

About This Tool

In good times or bad, recruiting is often one of those functions that suffer from neglect. When things are booming, companies can't hire enough people fast enough. Fearful of stalling their growth engine, hiring managers and HR teams scramble to get the job done without taking the time to learn from and improve the process. And when times are tight, it's hard convincing people that they should be thinking about the next surge and whether or not their recruiting process will be up to the challenge.

That's where a well-crafted, and consistently used, post-offer candidate survey can be helpful. Job offer candidates are in a great position to provide timely and meaningful feedback about your recruiting process. Experience shows that they are usually quite willing, anxious to, and candid about, giving such feedback. And the external perception they offer is often far more valuable than any internal view or assessment. In addition to gaining useful input about the process, the post-offer survey can also: help jump-start a relationship of mutual learning; show the new hire the value the firm has in their opinion; reinforce the firm's commitment to continuous improvement; and make them ambassadors for the organization before they even report for their first day of work, or despite the fact that they declined your offer.

Using This Tool

A post-offer candidate survey is a survey given to job candidates shortly after they've either accepted or rejected a company's offer. Timing is critical because you want to get their views while the recruiting experience is still fresh in their minds, and before they get too immersed in the details of making their transition from employer to employer.

The survey can be administered in several ways. (1) A member of the HR team can use the tool to conduct the survey by phone. This option allows for additional probing and the chance to clarify questions and answers. It doesn't, however, allow the recruit to privately think things over; and it might be more stressful to the recruit than the other options. (2) The survey can be mailed to the recruit. This option helps with the stress issue, but the downside is timing and control. The recruit needs to be around to get their mail and then hopefully will fill it out, and mail it back, before it gets buried somewhere on their desk. A mailed survey also requires an extra step of deciding who should and shouldn't get the last section which is meant for acceptances only. (3) Another option is to send them an e-mail with a link to the survey site. This helps address many of the issues above, but requires the technology to do it. Regardless of the method used, the post-offer survey can yield tremendously valuable insights that can be used to enhance key aspects of an organization's recruiting process.

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