Counter offers are becoming more commonplace: And given how competitive today’s job market is, it’s absolutely no surprise. The candidates we work with here at Herd Digital regularly receive counter offers that we prepare them for, and coach them through. And it’s this expertise in coaching candidates through counter offers that we want to give to you!

As an interviewer or hiring manager, it can be frustrating to invest time and effort into finding the perfect candidate, only to have them accept a counter offer from their current employer. But candidates accepting counter offers are not out of your control. We’ve put together ten effective strategies that you can implement to increase your chances of securing the top talent, and avoid the disappointment of a perfect candidate being tempted by a counter offer.

1. Establish Strong Personal Connections
2. Showcase Your Company’s Unique Value Proposition
3. Clearly Communicate Growth Opportunities
4. Emphasise Work-Life Balance
5. Offer Competitive Compensation Packages
6. Highlight Opportunities for Impact and Influence
7. Showcase Team Dynamics and Collaboration
8. Provide Transparency about Future Projects and Initiatives
9. Leverage Testimonials from Current Employees
10. Expedite the Decision-Making Process

1. Establish Strong Personal Connections:

Every candidate you interview could be the next person who joins your business for years to come. So aim to build a rapport with candidates through the interview process. Show genuine interest in their career aspirations, goals, and professional development. Establishing personal connections with candidates makes them feel valued and already a part of the team. When they’re excited for their new job, they’ll be far less inclined to consider counter offers that only address their financial concerns.

2. Showcase Your Company’s Unique Value Proposition:

Use the interview process as an opportunity to highlight your organisation’s unique culture, the opportunities for growth, and the overall benefits of work for your business. Emphasise the long-term career prospects, challenging projects, and positive work environment that set your organisation apart from your competitors. When candidates have the benefits of joining your team clearly laid out for them, they’ll be less likely to accept a counter offer.

3. Clearly Communicate Growth Opportunities:

Career growth opportunities have never been more important to digital marketers. Knowing that their next role is going to support their career. So it’s your job to outline the potential for career advancement and professional growth opportunities within your organisation. And really get into the specifics. Discuss the specific opportunities for skill development, mentorship programs, or training initiatives. 

When your job candidates can see their path for growth and advancement in the company, it’s easy for you to argue why this is better than the short-term gains of a counter offer.

4. Emphasise Work-Life Balance:

Work-life balance has never been more important to digital marketers, with hybrid and remote working blurring the lines between work and home. You can help set yourself apart by communicating your company’s commitment to a strong work-life balance, flexible working arrangements, and your employee well-being initiatives. Candidates who prioritise a healthy work-life balance are candidates who are less likely to be swayed by financial incentives alone.

5. Offer Competitive Compensation Packages:

Salary isn’t the only deciding factor when it comes to a digital marketers job search. But it is one of the most important factors and considerations. Ensuring that your compensation package is competitive within your industry and aligns with candidates qualifications and experience is crucial to not only attracting the right talent, but retaining it. 

Providing attractive benefits such as health insurance, retirement support and additional holiday days are all ways of making you more compelling when what you offer is better than what they currently have.

6. Highlight Opportunities for Impact and Influence:

One aspect that is often overlooked is finding meaning in work. Many candidates look for roles that allow them to make a meaningful impact, and contribute to the success of where they work: Somewhere where their work will actually matter.

So showcase to the candidate how their new position will provide them with an opportunity to drive chance, influence decision-making, or shape the future of the company. These intrinsic motivations can influence a candidate on an emotional level, which is where the majority of our decisions are made. And on a factual level, they can often outweigh counter offers that are based on purely financial incentives.

7. Showcase Team Dynamics and Collaboration:

The saying goes, people don’t quit jobs, they quit managers. And the opposite is true too. What can be more important than someone’s role and responsibilities, is the environment they work in. And by highlighting the collaborative nature of your organisation, and the strength of the team the candidate will be joining, you can show them why your company is somewhere they will enjoy working.

Candidates who already feel connected to a team and are excited about the collaborative environment will be less likely to consider counter offers: Especially if they are unhappy with the work environment of their current team!

8. Provide Transparency about Future Projects and Initiatives:

Discuss upcoming projects, new business ventures, or innovative initiatives that the candidate will get to play a part in. Because when a candidate can already envision what the next step in their career looks like, why would they stay in the same job where their career has stagnated? 

By providing a glimpse into the future prospects of your organisation and the impact they will have on it, you make the job opportunity into a reality in which the candidate can actually envision themself doing. Which makes it even harder to turn down, and accept a counter offer.

9. Leverage Testimonials from Current Employees:

Your current employees are the greatest ambassadors of your brand and company. Encourage your current employees to share their positive experience working for your business, whether on Glassdoor, Google Reviews, or your own website. You can incorporate employee testimonials into recruitment materials to give to candidates or even arrange conversations between candidates and members of your team.

When candidates hear first hand accounts of employee satisfaction, happiness and engagement, it can strengthen a candidate’s desire to join your company. As well as dispel any fears they may have regarding the uncertainty of joining a new business.

10. Expedite the Decision-Making Process:

The longer your decision-making process, the more likely you are to lose a candidate’s interests. It doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, it’s all the more infuriating: 

A candidate loves an opportunity and the interviewers love the candidates. But the layers of red-tape and bureaucracy delay the process. After days of not hearing, the candidate starts to get cold feet, and the certainty of a counter offer and what the candidate knows, starts to become more and more attractive. Before you know it, the hiring managers and executives are all happy, and the candidate is gone in the wind. 

Streamlining your recruitment process, minimising delays, and providing timely feedback to candidates shows that you’re eager to bring them onboard and increases your chances of securing the candidate. And stops you from throwing all your hard work away.

The clients we work with here at Herd Digital are lucky enough that they don’t need to worry about counter offers. Because e take care of it for them.

We work proactively with our candidates to address counter offers early in the process, so that when they do come, they already know the real reasons behind the counter offer.

Of course they still happen, as some people are purely focused on money, or get cold feet. But if you’re suffering from counter offer after counter offer preventing you from hiring for those must-fill positions, have a look here to see what we can do to support your business.