Why Do People Reject Offers or Does ‘No’ always Mean ‘No’?

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Experienced recruiters are used to candidates’ rejections and have their own methods for dealing with them. Should you just start your recruiting career and look for hacks on working with rejections, this article will be a great helper! ?

When Do Candidates Reject?

Recruiters may come across obstacles in communication with your perfect candidate on different stages:

1. When hunting a candidate from another company.
2. When agreeing on an interview.
3. When sending an offer to a person who has successfully passed that interview.

The latter is the saddest option, as recruiters commonly invest tons of time and energy in building relationships with the candidate of their choice who decides to accept an offer from competitors at the very last moment. Though the first two points are nonetheless discouraging. Even searching and selecting suitable candidates takes plenty of time and resources.

Have you received a rejection from a candidate? Don’t ever consider the end of the story, as ‘No’ doesn’t always mean the final decision. Choose one of these tricks up your sleeve for convincing that person that you are offering them a job of their dream:

1. Do your Homework First

Receiving a rejection is a reason not for upset but for analyzing the case. Recruiters without a proper plan and quality benchmarks face the issue of frequent rejections.

• First of all, learn your vacancy from A to Z. If you are a humanitarian who needs to close a technical vacancy, consult developers before getting to work. Candidates are very sensitive to non-professionalism and will quickly make jokes about cuties who consider Java and JavaScript a single language.
• Next, make sure this is the candidate who perfectly suits the vacancy. Maybe it’d be better to spend this time on more suitable people. As Steve Jobs said, “Work is what matters and not 12 hours!”, so better focus on those who 100% fit the vacancy and leave all others alone.

2. Provide More Details about the Job

A candidate who rejected your initial offer to learn more about the vacancy might be lacking information for decision making. When you ask someone: “Are you interested in this or that vacancy?” and they answer “No, thanks”, the game is not over yet.

• Activate all your psychological power to find out what can interest this candidate the most. Try to take a look at your vacancy with their eyes. Then list 3-4 most attractive points of the vacancy and suggest this candidate looking through them before to finally reject your vacancy.
• Describe relevant perks that could glue candidates’ attention. These might be different things for people of X, Y, Z generations who obtain positions of different levels, use various technologies, and have their own interests. For example, junior specialists are commonly interested in education and training, seniors are often attracted by ambitious projects and reliable insurance conditions.
• Make sure your offer doesn’t look like a network marketing advertisement. Use only objective arguments and do not praise your company too much — pretentious pathos will be immediately noticed. Be friendly and unobtrusive.
• If after learning deep details a candidate still rejects your offer, let it be. They might have other business or private reasons for that (job contracts, family difficulties, etc). Keep in mind that rejections are natural and if the person is sure that they are not the best fit for your vacancy, take it for granted. Have a positive attitude to such denials — you will have more time for more suitable candidates.

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3. Use Correct Language

Once you target a specific specialist, you can’t use standard messages and send them to everyone. Sending the same messages is not always fruitful, as your time and energy spent on sending similar messages to a hundred random people will be enormous. Alternatively, you can spend time looking for ideal candidates, getting acquainted with their style, and offering your vacancy to them. In most cases, ideal candidates are working for another company, that’s why they may reject your offer at the start.

• If you are headhunting someone specific, research their interests, writing style, social posts, and everything that gives you a chance to speak “their” language. Even a standard message wrapped in the right words will attract attention and arouse interest already at a subconscious level.
• Learn all pros and cons of companies these people are working for. See what that company is lacking what yours has, and list these benefits. If they really make a difference, your candidate won’t be able to resist such a tempting offer.
• A/B test your emails for suitable candidates. Try various creative headlines and catchy intros. Make notes of what works the best.

4. Work with Negative Bias

Experienced recruiters are always ready to dispel the candidate’s fears, which are most often quite common for everyone. For example, people are interested in the reliability of a new job. Knowing the “volatility” of the IT market, they might not be sure in long and happy cooperation with your company. Also, candidates could read one negative comment about the company among hundreds of positive ones on socials and turn their attention to the negative. Of course, they will be wary of your vacancies.

• Share proven facts about the company. Be honest and tell candidates about hard times you experienced before, then show current company success and real reviews of people working here. To urge a biased person to change their mind, invite them to a personal meeting (of course, you should remember about all the quarantine limitations, if you’re going to recruit them right now).
• Answer all questions of your candidate if you want to win him over. Better conduct a personal meeting to show them your comfortable office, friendly teams, and other perks described in the vacancy. The real demonstration works the best.
• Should HR managers work with negative comments on the Internet, if you want your company to look more attractive. The more positive information about the company one gets, the more likely they will accept your offer.

Key Takeaways

When communicating with candidates, keep in mind that they are experts in their fields who evaluate you as a company representative. So, you should be both friendly and professional to make the best impression of the company.

Once something goes wrong on the stage of a recruiter’s chat with a candidate, they may refuse, not looking at the obvious benefits of your project. Be very attentive and follow our tips to impress the candidate in a good way and attract the best personnel:

1. Know everything about the vacancy, including its technical part.
2. Be frank with people and tell them every detail about their future job.
3. Speak their language, don’t be too serious if one prefers a friendly style.
4. Try to neutralize negative biases, if a candidate has some. Show them facts.