Reflecting on my past 12 months of recruitment I was looking at my offer acceptance rate (78%) compared to the market.

Recruiting for DevOps in Berlin is not easy. DevOps is a niche skill and the demand is very high for such a small market – as a result, a high offer acceptance rate is essential to hit your growth targets.

A good recruiter will help you improve your offer acceptance rate.

What factors persuade a candidate to accept an offer?

Process Management and Speed

You need to work very closely with your candidate. Ensuring you know what they think and feel throughout the whole process.

To do this, I believe a call before an interview is essential, to make sure they are prepared with what to expect and what they need to know for their oncoming interview.

A call afterwards is just as important, you can gage how they feel the interview went, the positives and any concerns they may have.

Whilst working with the candidate throughout the process, clear communication with the hiring managers is vital. You need to be communicating any clear concerns that the candidate may have and ensure that the process is not slow.

The candidate has an offer. Great! But you’re not finished here.

If the candidate is on the verge of accepting, you need to ensure that the offer aligns with their values to the point where a potential counteroffer would not be attractive to them.

They have accepted and started? Fantastic, however, the job is not over. Post-sale is important.

Check-in with them after they start and a few months after to make sure they feel like they made the correct decision.

Package Offered

Salary and benefit expectations are basic but an essential bit of information.

From this, you can negate if the role is even within range to make the candidate happy.

You need to be clear with the hiring manager from the start about what the candidate is searching for and towards the end, keep them updated on what they would need to be offered to accept the role, including what benefits the candidate will actually use throughout their employment.

Alignment of Company and Personal Values

This is the part where you get to know the candidate.

What are their personal values? Mindset?

With this information, you find out if the company would be an ideal fit for the candidate.

Then, we find out their pain. What are they struggling with? Why are they looking in the first place? – This is my favourite if there is a problem with their current job, CAN IT BE FIXED? Always try to help them fix the problem before you start their next process.

Once we find their problems, does this new company have the solutions?

Career Progression

In most cases, a candidate does not want to move jobs to stay in the same position forever.

Does this new business offer progression?

You want to guarantee that the new company can offer a progression plan to allow the candidate to achieve their personal goals.

Employer Brand

Does your business have a good name in the market?

A companies Kununu/Glassdoor is very important to how you are portrayed in the market as it is the easiest way for a candidate to see employee’s opinions.

Secondly, you need to make sure your interview process is efficient and as short as possible. Having a candidate wait over a week for feedback will leave a bad taste in their mouth for when they are at the offer stage.