Thursday 13 July 2017

How To Ensure Your Chosen Candidate Doesn’t Accept A Counter Offer





Employment for those aged between 16-64 is at its highest since records began in 1971, and unemployment at its lowest since 1975*. As of such anyone looking to grow their business, and hire talent is faced with the difficulty that pools of available talent are depleting, and contest for for ideal candidates is high.

So when you find great talent and make them an offer, the last thing you want is their previous employer to play a counter offer, and you to lose that perfect team member. Counter offers often utilize competitive financial packages, personal relationships, and taking advantage of known vulnerabilities.

To avoid, what may seem like inevitable, bidding wars over rare talent we’ve compiled a few tips on how to prevent potential employees accepting counter offers – winning your candidate with an offer they can’t refuse.

1. Offer the Correct Salary

You are excited about having the candidate who offers bags of potential on board, but then you crunch the numbers and offer a salary that is similar or less than what they are receiving now. Offering a candidate a lower amount on the salary range is insulting for top talent, and it wastes everyone’s time.

While financial incentives may not drive a candidate, it’s almost guaranteed that a counter offer will be better in comparison - and likely would be the decider. If you’ve found the right person for your business, don’t skimp, or you’ll fall at the final hurdle.

2. Be Unique
However, if you know you’re unable to match a candidate’s current salary, that doesn’t mean that you can’t secure the talent. You can win over the candidate by offering a unique, and interesting set of benefits to your employee – how can you stand out from other employers?

Consider what you can offer over competitors: will the candidate experience working with exceptional businesses and fantastic clients? Do you have a social work environment, with outings? Highlight how you’re not offering a simple job but a career opportunity. Whatever you do best, sell it to your candidate and make it incomparable.

3. Let your Recruiter Help


A recruitment company can fight the counter offer battle with you. Recruiters hold the candidate’s hand throughout the whole process and are seen as impartial – positioning themselves as pursuing the candidates best interests. Recruiters are the friendly face that can help candidates after a tough resignation and will be there to listen to their offer dilemmas.

Recruiters offer invaluable aid through conducting role play, or discussing counter offers with candidates – helping them reason through their decision, and explaining why accepting counter-offers is often unwise, due to the displayed disloyalty to the original company, or highlighting the strengths of your business.

With a recruiter on your team, you have extremely beneficial insight into the candidates mind, and far more security against a counter offer.


4. Don't Be Afraid to Discuss Counter Offers


There is no point avoiding the elephant in the room. It is acceptable to discuss counter offers in the interview stage, it will help to open the mind of the candidate and will allow both you, and the candidate to prepare for the situation. Ask how their organisation handle resignations, which will mean they are ready for the scenario when it happens to them, and they know you’re aware of it too.

Another question to ask in the interview is why they want to move on, by having this knowledge you can use this to counteract if a counter offer sways them, it also helps you to create an offer that is tailored to their requirements.

5. Get Commitment on a Start Date


Having a start date imprinted in the candidate’s mind gives them time to prepare their notice, and forms a sense of commitment. Knowing when the candidate plans to hand their notice in means you can offer friendly moral support afterwards. Offering a friendly ear without pushing the candidate into a decision shows what a caring employer you are, which shines in your favour.

6. Plan Progression
The majority of candidates that come to you are looking for a future, not a job. If they’re considering moving on, they may feel like they are stagnating – take advantage of this and outline progression routes.

Offering a six-month performance review from the outset, evidence your commitment to their future. Don’t do this after a counter offer, make sure you are ahead of the game and are already forward-planning for their career.

7. Stay in Touch

Send press releases, newsletters and emails about upcoming business events, or simply call just to say hello. Make the candidate feel welcome, and like they belong.

An excellent way to get them mentally involved in your organisation is to ask their opinion about a business matter, so they feel their opinion is valuable. With this attitude, your new talent will look forward to joining your team.

8. Be Realistic


Finally, with every job offer, it is important to be realistic. Change is a difficult process for many people, and a comfortable old job with added counter offer benefits can be difficult to say no to. Don’t be defeatist, but be ready to accept that counter offers do happen – don’t pin all hopes on one person, and make sure to search for, and consider, multiple candidates. 

For more advice on recruiting the best sales professionals, or to get recruit the top candidates visit our website.

Tuesday 18 October 2016

Most Common Sales Roles and the Salary you should expect to pay

According to a candidate survey from totaljobs, 66% of candidates say that salary is what attracts them to a company; this makes it very important for Employers to understand the going rate for the most common sales jobs. Below you will be able to see the most common sales roles and the salary you should expect to pay.

Internal Sales - Internal Sales roles can be a combination of sales, marketing and general administration. The role can often expose you to many different sales and marketing skills and as such an internal sales role can be a great starting point for a career in sales. Salaries are typically £16k - £22k.
Telesales - Encompassing telemarketing, appointment setting, and incoming sales to complex technical solutions sold via the telephone. Often the roles support or 'buddy' with a field sales professional.  Salaries range from £14K to £28K.  Sometimes the 'on target earnings' or OTE is double the basic so the potential to earn can be extremely high.
Field Sales Executive – This is the most common field sales role which is a client facing role and a mix of new business generation and account management.Typical basic salaries are £20K to £32K.

Account Manager Jobs - Usually a field sales or client facing role where you are tasked with maintaining accounts and increasing the account spend. Salaries range from £18K to £70K although typically are in the £24K - £34K bracket.

Business Development Manager Jobs - A more sophisticated new business orientated sales role where accounts are strategically targeted and are normally high valued. Perhaps targeting clients where some business is already being done and the objective is to leverage the account. Salaries are typically £32K - £55K basic salaries.

Channel Sales/Distributor Sales - Selling product through a distribution or wholesale chain the role is often introducing new products, product training, encouraging the distribution staff to sell your product over competitors, setting incentives, etc. Salaries range from £25K to around £45K.

Regional Sales Management/Field Sales Manager -  Managing a team of field based sales professionals this is a people management role where you will mentor, drive and develop your sales team to greater success. Normally your bonus is based upon their performance. Salaries typically range from £32K to £50K.

Sales Manager A hands on management role ensuring that your team are trained and motivated to succeed. Usually you are remunerated on your team hitting their sales performance targets and key performance indicators (KPI's). The role normally has a heavy element of administration - sales forecasting, sales appraisals, etc. Salaries range from £35K to £80K.

Field Sales Engineer - Sales Engineer roles vary widely from component sales to hugely complicated project led solution sales roles. At the more complex end an engineering/science/mathematics qualification is often required and the sale is often won by your technical abilities rather than your sales skills. Salaries range from £22K - £45KBasic.

Pre-sales or Technical sales support - Normally in technical, engineering or IT sectors your role is to support the sales team from a technical capacity in order to 'close the deal'.The role varies enormously between companies as do the salaries as they range from £16K - £60K and sometimes the role is titled Applications Engineer.

Export Sales and International Sales - Selling outside of the UK.  Representing UK manufactured products (or more normally US or Chinese manufactured products!) overseas. From the UK this is typically into Europe or EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). Languages and knowledge of customs/cultures are normally required. Salaries range from £25K to £55K Basic.

Sales Director - As Sales Director you are ultimately responsible for all of the commercial aspects of an organisation - bids, tenders, costing, estimating, marketing, etc. Dependent on the size of the business it could be a largely 'desk job' analysing data and performance to a very hands on people management role. Salaries range from £50K to £140K dependent on the size of the business and the industry sector.

Written by Liam Oakes



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Wednesday 12 October 2016

The Need to Move Quickly in a Candidate Driven Market

A lot has changed in the since the 'Great Recession' in 2008-09, especially in the 'job market' and many employers have realised the ‘hard way’ that they no longer ‘hold all of the cards’

Whilst there used to be lots of competition for jobs, with clients able to pick and be spoilt for choice, this is no longer the case. Gone are the days of slowly shifting to a candidate driven market over seven year cycles; it is here and, despite Brexit, the Scottish Referendum and other distractions, it has been here since before at least 2012. 

Candidates have a lot of power and are able to 'flex their muscles' when looking for a new role. This means bad news for sluggish hirers as the talent they seek to acquire are receiving multiple job offers in a very short space of time. In addition to that, latest research from ‘Consol Partners’ show that at least 80% of candidates accept the first job offer that they receive. 

This makes it vitally important for all employers to move quickly when recruiting and here’s some straightforward tips to help you speed up your process.

Write A Clear Job Description – This may sound simple but often employers interview candidates that meet their criteria but don’t realise it. They’ve aimed for a target that they haven’t defined and without a job spec they didn’t grasp that they’d actually met their perfect candidate! Several weeks later, after meeting several further candidates that didn’t meet that benchmark, they return to offer the original candidate. Surprise, surprise their perfect candidate has been recruited elsewhere. Save yourself time, and lost opportunity, by having the criteria to recruit against from the outset. Advice on writing job specifications can be found in our Recruitment Plan Template

Agree the Time-frame – Set out an agreed time-frame with colleagues for your recruitment process. Check out our Recruitment Checklist for advice.

Are the Decision Makers there? Be aware of the availability of colleagues involved in your recruitment process. Check their diaries and ‘pencil in’ agreed dates for all interview stages.

Make Quick Decisions Against Agreed Criteria – Don’t take days/weeks to decide if a candidate is the right fit, try to sit down straight after the interview to decide while the candidate is still fresh in your mind.

Trust Your Gut – Hiring decisions need to be a combination of both insight and instinct. Aaron Wallis can help employers add effective recruiting tools into their service which do not necessarily prolong a hiring process. Waiting for references can potentially add another week to the hiring process. We recommend making verbal offers, ‘subject to references’ to ensure that you do not miss out on your perfect candidate.

Shorten the Process – Try not to drag out the process to more than 1st and 2nd interviews, any more than this and the candidate is already likely to have received an offer elsewhere.

Communicate – Things happen in business that ‘blur’ a recruitment process, we get that. However, if you don’t inform candidates that there is a delay, with valid reasons, then they’ll simply assume that you’ve recruited elsewhere.

Moving quickly is likely to be the difference in securing the best talent and it could save you a lot of time, and lost opportunity, in the process.

Written by Liam Oakes
Liam.oakes@aaronwallis.co.uk
www.aaronwallis.co.uk


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