After conducting what you consider to be a thorough job search, you find yourself in an awkward position– your first choice for the job has rejected your offer. Where do you go from here?
The decision you have to make at this point is on the whole a simple one: do you make an offer to the runner-up candidate or do you reopen the entire job search in the hope of finding someone like your first choice. It comes down to a cost-benefit analysis. The cost is the time, expense, and effort needed to go through another job search. The benefit is what you are likely to come up with at the end of that search and whether it is worth it or not.
In making this decision, there are several things to consider.
1.The fitness of the candidates
One thing to consider is the quality differential between candidates. If there is not much difference in the qualifications between your first and second choices, it would probably make sense to simply go with the runner-up.
On the other hand, if your first choice is truly an outstanding candidate, well above all the others, or someone with unique qualifications in their background, you may want to consider restarting the search in order to find someone with similar qualifications.
But you also have to consider the odds of finding someone of equal caliber, and they are directly related to #2 on this list.
2. The talent pool
How large is it? If it is a relatively small one, you may have already seen all the best candidates that are available, and so it would be a waste of time to go through the whole process again.
3. How quickly you need to fill the position
If the job vacancy is causing a great deal of disruption to your operation, you naturally want to fill it as quickly as possible, and so another job search would simply require too much time. But if you can leave the job open for a period of time without too much disruption, this may allow you to conduct another search.
A Review
If you have a candidate reject a job offer, you should also conduct a review of your hiring process, because a rejection is probably a sign that the process has not been as effective as it should be and you have missed something along the way about the candidate’s background, attitudes or fit.
If you are looking for quality workers, check with Opti Staffing. We are one of the best staffing agencies in the region. We have a temp agency in Tacoma, a temp agency in Vancouver, Washington, a staffing agency in Portland, a staffing agency in Salem, Oregon, and a temp agency in Seattle. Give us a call today.