The Metiss Group's Blog

You just finished following your selection process and you are ready to make an offer to a superstar.  The superstar accepts your offer and commits to starting in two weeks.  Now what do you do?

If you found a superstar, someone else is about to loose one.  Expect the superstar’s current employer to try to keep them from leaving by offering increased pay, more responsibility, or a promotion.  You are at a disadvantage here as the superstar has some allegiance and may have second thoughts.  All your hard work and expense following your selection process may be for naught if the superstar decides to rescind their acceptance.

After your offer is accepted, stay in touch with the future new-hire.  Coach the superstar on how to handle their company’s offer to stay.  Ask them, “What is your current boss likely to offer you to get you to stay?  What are you going to do if you are offered more money to stay?  What are you going to tell your boss if s/he offers you a promotion?”  Give them tips on how to answer.  Simply planting these seeds, will help your chances of not loosing your superstar.  Additionally, regular emails and calls are essential to letting the superstar know you really want them.  Meeting for lunch before s/he starts working for you is a good idea.  Your superstar will be excited after deciding to come work for you; keep that excitement from wearing off and avoid the risk of loosing them.

Empower you future new-hires for success and your career will soar.

We recommend assessing candidates after the phone screen, core values assignment and first interview.  As assessments become easier to administer, we are seeing more-and-more organizations assessing candidates at various points in their selection process.  In some cases, where they are being inserted, and how they are being used might create a legal/moral dilemma.

Legally, no assessment should count for more than 1/3 of the selection process and no assessment should be a go/no-go decision on its own.

There are two other business reasons not to assess too early in the process: 1) you might be investing in an assessment for a candidate you don’t like and could have screened out without the investment; and 2) the assessment might bias your view of the candidate before you meet. Meeting with a candidate before assessing allows you to be open mined about their styles.

A bigger mistake hiring managers make is administering assessments too late in the process.  It is common for managers to assess candidates as the final step “just in case something pops up.”  By the time a candidate gets to this stage of the process, hiring managers have emotionally committed to the candidate and cannot objectively interpret the results.  If hiring managers are deep into the process and committed to a candidate, don’t bother assessing.

Assessing candidates after the first interview allows the hiring manager to confirm their observations and objectively focus on concerns in follow-up behavior-based interviews and behavior-based reference checks.