Decide the offer terms before the final interview, then call the candidate within a day. The written offer follows that call inside 24 hours, one named person owns every question, and you say the response date out loud. Almost none of that is negotiation. It’s a short set of decisions you can make before anyone reaches your last round.
A service manager at a 10 to 100 person managed service provider (MSP) gets the green light on a strong tech, then spends four days chasing a signature and a start date while tickets pile up. The last interview happens Thursday. Monday the number goes back to the owner for a re-check. Tuesday nobody can say which start date clears the on-call rotation. Thursday the written offer goes out, and that evening the candidate takes the job somebody offered on Friday.
None of that delay came from a candidate asking for more money. In the 2022 Candidate Experience Report from Criteria, a survey of 1,967 job candidates, 32 percent abandoned a hiring process because it took too long. A quality technical hire typically takes 4 to 12 weeks to fill, and the offer stage is the part you can compress this week without changing anything else.
Decide the Offer Terms Before the Final Round
Settling base pay and a start date after the last interview creates dead time, and dead time is when candidates commit somewhere else. Five decisions belong on paper before the final round runs.
- Who signs, and who can approve an exception. Name the signer, a backup, and the one person allowed to say yes above the range.
- Where inside the range this offer can land. Our page on salary expectations covers how the band gets set and confirmed, so all you’re adding here is a pre-approved ceiling.
- The earliest start date the business can support. Check the on-call rotation and confirm someone is free to onboard them that week.
- What the package includes beyond base. Write down the on-call stipend or rotation rules, the overtime policy, certification reimbursement, and what the employee pays toward the health plan.
- The response window. Choose a date and a time you’ll ask for an answer.
As Fletcher Wimbush puts it, “HR people are not recruiters. Making a compliance admin focused HR person do recruiting is like making an accountant do sales.” The person who signs your offers at a 40 person MSP has four other jobs. That’s why the offer turns into an internal project. It’s also why these five answers are easier to settle in a quiet week than on the Friday a candidate wants an answer.
Make the Offer on a Call, Then Put It in Writing
Call the same day as the final interview, or the next morning. Send the written offer within 24 hours of that call. Going to email first feels tidier, and it turns a few simple questions into a three-day thread.
A call is faster because the candidate’s questions arrive while you’re both on the phone. They ask what the health plan costs them, how the on-call rotation works and if the start date can slide a week. You answer in four minutes instead of two rounds of email. Name one person as the owner of the whole back-and-forth so the candidate never wonders who’s driving. Then give the response window as a date and a time rather than leaving it open.
A stated date gives the candidate something to plan around. An exploding offer with a two-hour deadline tells a good engineer what you’ll be like to work for.
Fractional recruiting, a flat monthly fee for an outside recruiter who runs your searches, covers the interview coordination and follow-up for every open role. That’s the mechanical reason the offer stage compresses, because the person scheduling it has no other job this week. The fee is $1,500 a month on a six-month commitment, or $2,500 month to month, and it doesn’t move with the salary.
Ask About the Counteroffer Before You Make the Offer
The one negotiation you should expect comes from the candidate’s current employer, and it has little to do with money. Most candidates who take a counteroffer never wanted the resignation conversation, and their manager’s raise was the easiest way out of it.
So ask before you make the offer. What will your manager say when you resign, and what will you say back? A candidate who has already pictured that conversation will take your offer. The candidate hearing that question for the first time on the day they accept withdraws a week later, or starts and leaves inside three months. That’s the early turnover you opened the role to avoid.
Their answer also tells you if your package competes. A candidate who says their manager will match the base and add a certification budget has handed you the two things to confirm in writing. Nobody has to raise the number for that to be worth knowing.
If fractional looks right on paper and you want to test it against your own hiring plan, schedule a 30-minute call with Discovered and we’ll run the numbers with you.
