Job Offers Should Be Like Buying A House (Not A Car)

A new job is an emotional experience for candidates and hiring managers alike. Nobody wants to make the wrong choice on either side of the table.

Unfortunately, the traditional process of presenting job offers usually felt something like subterfuge not simplicity. There always seemed to be the proverbial man behind the curtain (youtube) calling the shots but never really revealing all the details.

Thankfully, employers are experiencing an enlightenment of sorts. Talent is hard to find, and simple economics tells you that the right people are more valuable (and worth paying) than a whole lot of the wrong people — no matter what you are (or are not) paying them. Richard Branson famously said that companies should “treat their employees well enough that they can leave, treat them well enough they don’t want to.”

With that as a backdrop to corporate compensation philosophy today, smart companies are working early and often with candidates to develop a clear, plain conversation around total compensation and rewards that includes the candidates interests, the company’s planned compensation model and finally, the market’s salary details for the given job and location.

This is why I say job offers should feel like closing on a home, not trying to buy a car.

A job offer like a good home closing will include:

• Clear, up-front conversations about the full scope of the job from the first interaction to the job offer (the “closing”).
• You will have many opportunities to discuss the job openly with future co-workers, subordinates as well as management.
• Recruiters involved will be forthcoming and transparent about expectations and timing.
• Clear and transparent discussion about compensation philosophy will be shared with you so you can make an informed decision about what you want to request.
• Any disputes or discussions are fair and balanced with all the facts on the table.

Meanwhile, a car salesman’s job offer experience will feel like this:

• The details about the job are only high-level and get fuzzy when you press for details.
• You often only meet with one or two people and they’re the only ones who talk to you about the job.
• You feel intense pressure to hurry and make a decision about the job. RIGHT. NOW! without all the details clearly worked out.
• Often the person you’re talking with can’t make decisions and has to keep “going back for approval” repeatedly, exposing either tremendous red tape or (at a minimum) information hoarding by HR or finance or someone.
• They want to know your comp requirements, but never share their expectations of pay OR WORSE, they never ask you what you’re looking for and just throw a number at you claiming it’s fair and you should take it.

Here are three things companies can do to present job offers like a good home closing and not like a sleazy car salesman:

1. Talk early and often about compensation and total rewards.
   This is often best done between the recruiter and the candidate. I recommend simply asking the candidate for a target comp as well as a minimum to determine a range. Importantly, no judgement is expressed here. The recruiter takes down the information and explains that this will come up again soon.
2. Enable fully-transparent interview processes.
   We forget that we need the candidate to choose us as much as we want to choose them. Develop your interview processes in a way that will foster two-way selection. Let the candidate talk with future colleagues, direct reports, managers, cross-functional leaders and more. Let them understand how they will fit in to your company personally, not just professionally.
3. Fully discuss compensation verbally before writing out paperwork.
   Legal departments hate this but it’s a key part of the process. You would never buy a home without first talking about price, what to include, what to exclude, etc. And we should do the same with our candidates.Give them details on base pay, bonuses and equity if-applicable. Tell them about vacation, benefits, or other things they should be aware of. Often the key factors come down to total expected annual cash compensation and the value of long-term rewards.
4. Next, the recruiter goes back and gets approval to extend an offer at a certain point in the range the candidate wants and presents this to the candidate, who can accept it verbally. Personally, thanks to legal department paranoia, I often state this as something like, “If an offer were to be made like this, do you think you would accept it, or at least seriously consider it?”. This is my chance to explore any wishywashyness and perhaps resolve it before generating any paperwork at all.

When this is done correctly, candidates will often accept the offers right away because experience of the job-offer is simply a formality… the legally-binding conclusion to a decision that was already emotionally determined days or weeks before!