Hiring Managers: Accept the Counteroffer Before Going Back to the Recruiting Drawing Board

Let’s paint the recruiting picture: you’ve been seeking a secret squirrel for a specific position for months, losing money on the vacant billet, spending a recruiter’s time and salary for said position, and now you have a frustrated customer and a burned-out recruiter.

You’ve had many candidates go through phone screens, team interviews, and get accepted by the customer, but you are stalled at the salary negotiation and offer acceptance stage. Likely, their salary requirements are just too high, even though you alluded to the position budget weeks ago.

Through data collected for the ClearanceJobs Cleared Recruiting Guide, when leaving a company for a new position, recruiters reported compensation as the driving factor 56% of the time.

SHRM President and CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. says “In today’s ultra-competitive labor market, it is common for an employer to counter an employee’s new job offer with a salary increase. For employers, retention is at a premium as they seek to avoid the replacement costs of recruiting and retraining new employees.”

With the high demand for cleared talent, and not as many clearance holders as there are cleared positions, hiring managers are forced to accept that matching counteroffers can be the cheaper option. If you find yourself in this position, you are likely aware of the recruiting hurdles that talent acquisition professionals are facing in securing talent for national security programs.

HOW TO ADVOCaTE FOR YOUR HIRING MANAGER TO ACCEPT THE COUNTER

The easiest way to show your hiring manager that accepting the counteroffer is the better route – instead of going back to the recruiting drawing board – is to calculate your cost to hire and what it would be instead of just increasing the salary by a few thousand. Average cost to hire varies significantly by company and position. You’ll include internal costs (i.e., salaries, infrastructure costs, software licensing, etc.), external costs (like agency fees, advertising, career fairs, etc.) or additional add-ons like recruiter commissions once you fill the role.

A 2018 study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers put the cost to hire figure at $6,110. For cleared companies, where there is a need to layer FSO or background investigation costs, the figure can tick up by 10-20% or more.

THE CLEARED RECRUITING CHRONICLES: YOUR WEEKLY DoD RECRUITING TIPS TO OUT COMPETE THE NEXT NATIONAL SECURITY STAFFER.