The 6 Stages of Closing a Candidate

The 6 Stages of Closing a Candidate When it comes to  securing candidates into roles, its all about acting quickly, if not immediately! As soon as you have the initial conversation with them, you  should be thinking about the close, even though it may seem far, far away. Throughout the entire recruitment process, recruiters should  gather in depth information to  gauge the level of interest and  commitment  from their candidates. First Stage: Pre-screen The earliest stage you should begin closing the candidate on accepting the job is the pre-screen. Here you find out the struggles they have in their current role (because let’s face it they didnt really give up their evening for a nice chat) and of course what their dream role consists of. Its this information that you can use throughout the process to continually check that  the opportunity is in line with their best interests. Come offer stage, you can  remind them of what was driving them to search for a new role in the first place! Second Stage: Interview confirmation It’s important to keep positively presuming every situation when delivering the interview confirmation. Let the candidate know just  how  excited your client is to meet them. ‘They are very excited to meet you, I take it you would accept the offer if you liked the business?’’ Third Stage: Interview preparation Even when spending the best part of an hour prepping the candidate for the interview, the most important aspect is believe it or not, the close. ‘If it goes as we have planned tonight, you will get invited back, what does your diary look like?’ Don’t allow an ‘no option. Fourth Stage: Feedback Delivering feedback to a candidate is the prime opportunity to work towards closing the candidate. You do this by helping paint the picture of them working for the business, and explain the positive impact theyve had on the people theyve met so far.  The negative aspects of the feedback can be positioned as a  negotiation tool to make the candidate feel theyd be lucky to get an offer, and further mould the opportunity  into an extremely desirable one! You can also use their negative pieces of feedback about the job and discuss how you can get around these. ‘I can negotiate the commission structure to be a lot higher which means it’s the perfect position for you’ Use the recruitment skills you have spent years building to conduct the close without even thinking about it. There are two main reasons why closing the candidate at an early stage is crucial in recruitment: You will see whether the candidate is truly committed to the role  You will see how much they want the position Fifth stage: Offer If you have followed the stages highlighted above there should be no surprise in presenting the offer and the candidate accepting immediately. This is because you have prepped well enough to know exactly what they want. You present the offer in a way which they believe your client can’t wait to have them on board and you have negotiated and tailored the package completely suited to them. Sixth  stage: Post-offer From the offer onwards it’s still important to keep the close at the epicentre of all conversations as it bears with it a powerful mechanism that has the ability to guide the candidate through the resignation stage. It helps break the golden handcuffs that the previous employer can hold them back with. About the author: Daniel Gostelow is a Managing Director at ion Search, a  recruitment company in the rec2rec space.   Image: Shutterstock