Everyone likes receiving and giving good news. Recruiters are no exception. Extending a job offer-email-formal-job-offer/" target="_blank" rel="noopener follow noreferrer" data-wpel-link="internal">offer to a candidate after a long hiring process is exciting and fulfilling. You’re very close to fulfilling a job vacancy and gaining a new team member.
Job offers are always a special moment for candidates and are usually a time for celebration. They also offer a great moment to enhance the candidate experience. By making the moment just a tiny bit more memorable, you can positively surprise your candidates and ensure that they accept your job offer. It also helps your new employees to feel welcome and motivated to start at your company. This is an excellent introduction to becoming an employee for your organization, and first impressions truly count.
Making your job offers stand out requires you to think outside the box. You can make your job offers as crazy as you want as long as you make sure that they’re enjoyable for your team and your candidates. Here are five creative ways to surprise your candidates in their job offer.
5 creative ways to make your job offers
1. Use gifs with your team doing something crazy
GIFs are a great visual way to send a positive message to your candidates.
They can be made within a few minutes and there are plenty of online tools available to help make them (like Giphy or Ezgif).
The point in making a personalized GIF is to show creativity and a sense of ‘keeping up with the trends.’ For it to work, though, and convey the right atmosphere, it’s vital to involve your team. The goal of this GIF is to be personal, make your candidate feel welcome, and just give them an extra push to accept the offer.
Plus, it’s also fun for the team to make these GIFs and give creative input on how to make the GIF as fun as possible.
If you really want to surprise your candidate, don’t mention or give away the good news in the email. Instead, send them a message with a link to the GIF saying that you have a special message for them. When they click the link, they will see your GIF and know that they’ve been offered the position.
In short: A little silliness can go a long way.
2. Ask them to come in and then surprise them
If you really want to surprise your candidates in the most personal way, you can ask them to come in to “discuss some minor things” and then surprise them with your whole team and a big banner telling them that they’ve been hired.
This approach can be risky, though, and requires more effort from both the candidate and yourself. You will need to get your team on board and get your candidate to actually come to the office. The best thing to do is to invite the candidate on a Friday afternoon so that they can join your team’s Friday afternoon social. This way, both your team and the candidate can get to know each other in an informal setting and celebrate being hired.
Remember, though, that if the candidate is currently employed by someone else, they will need to give their current employers notice to take time to visit your office. Therefore, this needs to be planned in advance, and new employees need to be given plenty of warning that you’d like to see them in person.
Despite the obstacles, this is a lovely way to deliver good news to your new employee. It builds a bridge and makes for a very memorable experience. Consider the ‘normal’ way of receiving a job offer – whether that’s via email or on the telephone – and you’ll see that this is far more of a personalized celebration. It sets the tone and shows employees that your organization celebrates success properly.
3. Send a custom job offer playlist
This might be one of the funniest ways we’ve seen thus far of telling your candidates you’d like them to join your team. Create a Spotify playlist with song titles that let candidates know they’ve been hired and send the link to your candidate. A good playlist good look like this:
This personalized list will surely get the candidate excited to accept the job and be part of your team.
There are, of course, challenges with this method. Finding the right songs can be time-consuming, and there’s always a chance that it’ll go straight over the new employee’s head. So, involve your team and ask for their suggestions. Make sure it’s clear why you’re sharing the Spotify playlist with your candidate with a supporting message that doesn’t give the whole game away.
4. Send a photo of a personalized desk to them
Another fantastic way to let candidates know that they’ve been hired is to take a photo of a desk that has been decorated specifically for them. Of course, to do this, you will need to know more about your candidates. You can do this by sending out a survey sometime in the application process with personal questions. This information can then be used to decorate the desk.
Here are some examples of things that you can do to personalize the desk:
- Write the candidate’s name with their favorite candy.
- Hang small images of their favorite people or things.
- Put a warm, welcoming message on the desktop screen.
Decorating a desk will make the candidate feel that you have already fully prepared your office for their arrival. This increases the likelihood of your candidate accepting your offer as they already feel like a part of the team.
The surroundings of your employees say a lot about their quality of work. Many find that, because they’re at their desk so often, they enjoy decorating it with photos or objects that mean a lot to them. It can be tricky to grasp these at such an early stage, though, and asking personal questions at an interview stage can feel a little intrusive. It’s therefore essential to phrase the questions correctly. Perhaps talk to your team about your plan to unveil the news pre-interview to whichever candidate is successful. It can be their ‘undercover mission’ to collect information and feed back after the candidate has been chosen.
5. Send a welcome package to their house
If you really want to put in time and effort into surprising your candidate, you can surprise them by sending them a special welcome package to their house. This is probably the most extraordinary way of being told that you’re hired from a candidate’s perspective, and it also serves as a massive boost to your employer brand. The package can include items as:
- A personal card letting the candidate know that they’ve been hired (including the contract).
- A company T-shirt.
- A company-branded water bottle.
- Chocolate with the company logo on it.
- A notebook and pen (again, branded if possible).
It is more common to send such a package after the candidate has accepted an offer. However, doing this before could increase the likelihood of your preferred candidate accepting the offer.
Why get creative with job offers?
Getting creative with your job offers is fun and has a massive impact on your employer brand and candidate experience.
Candidates are more likely to accept when they have had a positive experience, which will positively impact your acceptance rate of offers.
But it’s not all about the new employee. Allowing for creative methods means involving your team. This process and teamwork make for a stronger team spirit and give the candidates a feeling of wanting to be a part of the team.
In a nutshell, creative job offers allow your organization to stand out from the competition, create a memorable experience from the get-go with your new employees, and encourage teamwork and creativity from your existing team.
The days of simply calling your candidate via telephone and reading a ‘job offer script’ are over. Instead, get creative, mix it up, and above all else: have fun.
