I am going to chime in here a bit on the Velvet Hammer’s post from below regarding the 1 week window for making offers to candidates. Last week, Selling Power had an excellent article in their newsletter that contained some great tips. Dan Miller, vice president of Talent Acquisition and Retention at Monster.com made this smart suggestion (my emphasis):
“Don’t just talk about the base salary; talk about the ability the candidates will have to achieve the upside,” says Miller. “Candidates may take a lower offer on the base salary if they feel that they have the tools and opportunities to exceed quota. If you’re trying to build a world-class sales organization, you need to sell growth as a fabric of the culture. Enthusiasm and energy has to come through when you position the job offer.”
We look at things with a sales focus in mind. If you have a sales candidate that is looking for a large base salary or a guarantee, ask yourself why? Do they believe you have accurately portrayed your sales cycle, quota and value proposition?
Sales is the one area in a company where there are no guarantees. There is risk in that if you don’t close deals, you won’t make as much money. Yet the reward has tremendous upside in a large commission check. If a candidate is pushing for a guarantee, you need to address that topic quickly – why is the candidate asking for the guarantee? If it is a reasonable response, I would follow it up by asking what they are willing to give up in exchange for it.
Here are the things that the article suggested the offer letter should include. They are not in any specific order and I have added my take to some of the items.
- Position and job description – For sales I would recommend that you lay out your expectations and include milestones for the first 90-180 days and their first year’s sales quota.
- Location and working hours
- Base salary – You must include your commission schedule also. I would even recommend that you include a spreadsheet of the expected commission according to their quota. One other critical item – you must define when the commission is earned (at billing, at shipping, at payment received).
- Benefits – include a copy of you benefits statement. This topic has become a very important area for any new hire due to the escalating costs of healthcare. Be as specific as possible – who is the provider, when are they eligible for the benefit, how much it will cost, etc.
- Start date
- Information, documents that are needed on the first day of work
- Contingencies (reference check, start date) – If you tender the offer prior to references and a background check, make sure that the offer is contingent upon satisfactory completion of these steps.
- Last, include a date by which the applicant must respond to your job offer so you can move on to the next candidate if he or she doesn’t accept. As the Hammer always says, “It never takes them longer to say YES.” Often if they can’t give you an answer within 48 hours, they are using your offer to get a better deal with their present employer or leveraging your offer against another offer.