Negotiating a job offer - if you are making the offer

Once again, the Jobs in Procurement team is not about to set about teaching its readers anything at all about negotiation.  We are going to put forward our thoughts on making an offer of employment to a candidate that you really want to hire - our aim being to maximise the chance of your offer being accepted by that candidate.

From the earliest stage of the recruitment process, it is important that you have a clear understanding of the candidate's current remuneration package, including details of bonus and the date at which their next pay review is going to take place (and its likely outcome).  This is information that your chosen Recruiter should help you with as part of their service.

Throughout the recruitment process your Recruiter, yourself and your HR colleagues should spend some time managing the expectations of the candidate(s) that you interview.  With their current remuneration in mind and an understanding of where the role that you are interviewing for fits into your salary bands etc., make sure that the candidate has in her mind that your offer is going to be 'something around €XX.'  The very detailed discussion comes later, but sowing the seed from an early stage of the process is important.

When it comes to making the actual offer to a candidate, the choice of whether to do that directly or via your Recriter is for you to make.  Our advice? Whichever you feel most comfortable with.  Some Recruiters will insist that they are best placed to broker the offer.  In some cases that may be true but, if you feel strongly that you want to make the offer to the candidate, go ahead.

Preface the offer with some warm words: We are delighted to have found you... We think you will do a great job and have an excellent future with our organisation... that type of thing.

Set out the offer in detail and be sure to include every element that has value: base salary, bonus, car allowance, relocation, share schemes, staff restaurant, product allowance, holidays, flexible benefits, pension scheme, expat allowances, joining bonus, healthcare costs, etc.  Be sure to include when the salary is up for review too.

It is recommended that you make as close to your absolute best offer as you can first time.  This is not the time for a multiple round negotiation process: ideally the offer will be as good as the candidate is expecting and that can be pointed out: 'We talked about a base salary of €85k being the level that would make this role attractive to you, well I am pleased to say that the offer we are making to you is actually €87k.'

Once the offer is on the table, its OK to make it time bound.  Whilst it is acceptable that the candidate needs some time to think it over and talk with her family about it, a long delay in making a decision at this stage is not OK - over one weekend is the maximum that we can recommend.

As you are involved in the recruitment of a Procurement professional, expect them to come back with a small negotiation point, or at least a point of clarification.  Experience tells us that this is likely to be for something small if the process has been handled correctly from the outset.

Once the offer is verbally accepted, get the written contracts exchanged quickly and agree a start date with the new member of your team.