What to Do When a Candidate Turns Down Your Job Offer

Picture this: after a very long interview process with potential candidates, you’ve finally found the perfect one to match the company’s requirements. But when you finally give them the good news, they suddenly turn down the job offer.

Believe it or not, recruiters do get rejected a countless amount of times. This scenario has become increasingly common as the economy grows and candidates gain power in the job market. What, then, must a recruiter do to handle this kind of rejection? Plan B might not always be the best solution, so perhaps it’s time to examine where your hiring process could be stronger.

1. Ask the candidate why they don’t want to accept the offer.

According to Irelis Arias, Director of Human Resources at HRdirect, “If it is about pay, ask them what they are looking for. If it is much higher than what you budgeted for and cannot offer them what they want, see if there is any way you can meet them halfway instead.”

Try to look for other options and other ways to sweeten the deal. The recruiter should also try to highlight the best thing about working in the company like career growth, training, possible increased pay, and company culture.

2. Examine your hiring process.

If candidates keep rejecting your job offer, then maybe it’s time you look into your recruitment process. What sources are you using to find these people? Are you heavily dependent on job boards and recruitment platforms like Kalibrr or LinkedIn? Is your job post well-written and attractive to potential talents? Be diverse in your processes, just like how you want to diversify your workforce.

3. Review every aspect of your situation

As mentioned, something to take note of is how much information you (as a recruiter) have given to the candidate about the company. Remember that the candidate is also interviewing you just as much as you’re interviewing them. Vague answers, tardiness, or apathetic staff can say a lot about a company and may be one deciding factor that they’ll reject the job offer—even if the interview went well.

4. Take feedback accordingly

Merit is found in those who are able to take feedback and improve from there. If you’ve already identified where the potential problem may be, you’re already one step closer to improving your hiring process. Make sure that you are able to tackle pain points when revisiting your process, and don’t take it to heart! If anything, it’s good that you were given the opportunity to improve.

5. Get going right out the chute—or don’t.

Candidates don’t get job offers because the array of qualified applicants are vast, and that idea also holds true to recruiters as well. Chances are, you’ve already missed one or two people who are “qualified-but-not-really-the-best.” The first thing you should do is to contact those candidates before they, too, get snatched away by other employers.

Then again, it might be best to wait on it as well. Wait for the right one to come if the other candidates just don’t capture your attention just as much as the first choice did. If your company can afford to keep the position open for a while, then there’s no use in trying to sacrifice quality for the sake of efficiency. It’s difficult to be on the rejected side of an offer, but it does happen. When a qualified candidate declines your offer, don’t take it personally. This is not a reflection on the caliber of the company. Think of it as any other business transaction that didn’t go quite as planned.

Best to take those rejections and move on.

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