The average offer acceptance rate in India for engineering roles is around 50%, which means candidates reject one of the two offers recruiters make (The Economic Times). It is a challenge for every role across industries.

What is offer acceptance rate?

Offer acceptance rate is the percentage of candidates who accepts your job offer. A high offer acceptance rate means you have an effective recruitment strategy.

5 frequent reasons of a low offer acceptance rate and how to improve it

Sometimes candidates turn down job offers after going through the recruitment process. It is frustrating to experience such a scenario.

There are ways you can ensure most candidates take your job offers if you know the possible reasons and prepare to address them. Try to find out why candidates have rejected your job offers so far. To make it easier, we’ve listed 5 common reasons candidates turn down offers and ways you can avoid them:

1. Unsatisfactory compensation

Sometimes, a low compensation package leads to a low job offer acceptance rate. During negotiation, candidates who agree to accept your offer turn it down later. Often, how much salary candidates get in hand affects their decision. They will turn down your offer if they feel the offer has unnecessary deductions.

First, determine what compensation the candidate will happily accept.

Read and analyse salary data on Glassdoor,  Payscale and  AmbitionBox to determine the salary range your ideal candidates would be more likely to accept. 

2. A delayed and lengthy recruitment process

Sometimes candidates don’t accept offers if they have ordinary experience during the recruitment process. For example, the candidate may find other job opportunities if your screening process takes time or the interview goes too long. They will consider comparing their experience with multiple companies before deciding. Also, a delay in extending an offer is seen as a lack of an employer’s interest. 

Rethink your candidate’s experience. Integrate into your recruitment process calendars and appointment scheduling tools like Calendly. Consider using an applicant tracking system like PyjamaHR to screen candidates and schedule and conduct interviews efficiently.

3. Candidates were not really interested

When looking to change jobs, candidates use different channels and apply to many companies at a time. On getting shortlisted, they research the company, the job role and other aspects of the organisation to determine whether they would consider the job offer.

Efficiently screening the candidate will ensure that you interview the right candidate. During phone and video screening, emphasise asking questions to confirm they have done research about your organisation and are interested in your job. Their answers can tell you how serious they are about working with you.

4. A counter offer from the current employer

Candidates use job offers to get counter offers from their current organisation. Sometimes candidates are not sure about leaving their current job. So, if their current company extends a counter-offer, they are happy to accept and continue their service. More such cases can lead to a low job offer acceptance rate.

Here’s how you can avoid counter-offer scenarios to improve your job offer acceptance:

• Check if the current employer can easily address the candidate’s reason for a job change and also make counter offers.
• Check during interviews if the candidate’s primary motivation to change jobs is money.

5. The candidate got a better offer elsewhere

When changing jobs, candidates want to have choices and backups. A good candidate may have multiple job offers at the same time. So when they have more than one job offer, they want to pick the one that looks best.

Follow up with the candidates to determine if they are still interested or considering other jobs. Knowing these things will help you address them immediately and avoid losing talented candidates.

When you know the possible reasons candidates reject job offers, you can make necessary changes in your hiring process. Often, by addressing the above problems, recruiters improve their job acceptance rate.