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More On Generating Offers

Wedding_crashers_2  Lou Adler has an a great post today on ERE talking about how HR Departments waste money and time getting away with things that most other organizations within a company could never get away with. His Twelfth Point I have borrowed and copied below. He says:

Make offers before the candidate has said yes. It's like asking someone to marry you before you know the answer. This is naïve at best. Get 100% formal agreement on every single term in your offer before formally extending it. Then, ask the candidate to sign it and send it back to you by the next morning. If the person refuses, don't make the offer. And please don't make excuses about why you can't do this. If you suffer from counteroffers or candidates rejecting your offers and accepting other offers, you need to do this immediately.

This is exactly how third party recruiters should be thinking and it is exactly what I wrote about a few weeks back, well kind of....

You need to let your candidates know in advance of working with them what your expectations are. Try real hard to get them to say no and then ask why not. Now you are having a real conversation.

Sat, 05/06/2006 - 6:58am

I think Lou is stepping out of his area of competence on the marriage issue. That doesn't sound like standard protocol to me.

And the situation is different from the job offer anyway. You know the person is going to accept the written job offer because you have asked her in advance.

With marriage he's advising you not to ask until you know -- which is quite different.

"Listen, honey, I want to ask you to marry me but before I do I want to ask you if you'll accept."

I think Lou must have meant that you have to ask him or her (not "them") before you file the papers and appear at the ceremony.

Mon, 05/08/2006 - 3:39pm

Maybe the them was accidental - he could have been watching Big Love as he wrote the column.

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