A recruiters nightmare: The rise of the counter offer

Counteroffers are becoming more common as the war for talent continues on. 40% of employers have made a counteroffer in the last 12 months.

With 41% of employers having hard-to-fill vacancies, they are less likely to let their current employees leave without trying to get them to stay.

How does this affect you as a recruiter? Well, shockingly, it will make your job much harder. However, there is some good news, you can make your life easier. Knowing that counteroffers are more common than ever before, you can start combatting them right from the very beginning of the process.

Qualification calls

If I asked you why someone is looking for a new job, you would be able to tell me. If I asked you why they would accept job A over job B, you may not have the answer. Focus on uncovering what it is that the candidate really wants and what drives them. The chances are money is not the top priority, yet most counteroffers are a boost in salary.

CV feedback

Check in with the candidate and do a mini-qualification to reconfirm that the previous information is still correct. Spend some time talking about their motivators to drive home the point that their current role isn’t satisfying them (if it isn’t). Re-sell the vacancy against those motivators (if it meets them, if it doesn’t why have you put them forward?) to keep the excitement.

Interview

At the interview preparation stage, you again discuss the motivators, you re-sell the client and the vacancy and you align with each other. You can now start talking about the next few steps – offer and counteroffer. You have confirmed the reason that the candidate wants to leave their current role as well as their motivators. You have discussed how their current role doesn’t meet these motivators and how your vacancy does. You can then use hypothetical questions to close them on an offer before you even have the offer.

Offer

You should now have an offer, and already know if it is one that they will accept as you have covered this in your hypothetical questioning. At the offer stage, you want to recap everything that you have already spoken about in your previous conversations and get them in the mindset that this vacancy is what they want as it meets their motivators and their current role can’t.

You can straight up ask them if they will get a counteroffer as they are becoming more common. You will then need to ask them what it would take for them to accept a counteroffer. You should already know the answer to this because you have tested them previously. If they come up with an offer that they would consider, then you can stay there and spend some time discussing this. Once you have dealt with that, you present the offer.

Offer acceptance

Once the candidate has accepted, you will now find out if they get the dreaded counteroffer. You should prep them for this and get them to agree to talk with you before they accept the counteroffer.

This will give you a chance to influence them, or go back to your client and get a counter-counteroffer.

So, with counteroffers becoming more common, your life will become harder. However, you have the power and opportunity to overcome these.

Control of the process.

Stay close to the candidate.

Uncover the candidates motivators.