Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) have been aiding HR departments and hiring managers for years. From helping to filter out bad-fit applicants to keeping track of the entire bureaucratic hiring process, ATS seemingly does it all.  

Except for one area: the offer stage. 

Offer letters are one of the most vital steps of the initial employee experience. At this stage, HR and hiring managers have made their decision to hire an individual, and the offer letter needs to stand out to ensure that the organization is attractive enough for the individual to sign and join the team.  

In other words, a poorly designed offer letter that doesn’t succinctly and accurately explain an employee’s total rewards in an easy-to-digest format can lead to individuals passing on the offer, which means all that time spent interviewing and vetting becomes wasted.  

To attract top-tier talent and ensure that they make the jump from candidate to employee, offer letters need an upgrade that goes far beyond what ATS does right now. 

2021 Overview: Attracting and Converting Top Talent 

As the economy recovers from the impact of COVID-19, many organizations are entering (or are already in) growth mode. Merger and acquisition deals, for example, that were stalled during 2020 have spun back to life. Capital investments are on the rise across the US. Remote work is becoming the new normal with hybrid and dispersed teams opening brand new candidate pools that aren’t geo-locked. And all of this means one thing: organizations need top-notch talent, and they need it yesterday. 

So how does an organization attract and then convert the right people to meet their overall talent strategy? They start by having a smooth, transparent interview process that helps both sides decide if they are a good fit for one another. This culminates in making a great offer that not only contains competitive compensation plans but also in-demand perks, unique benefits, healthcare details, and much more.  

Organizations that pull together great offers already understand the value of employer branding and how having amazing scores on sites like Glassdoor can impact not only today’s talent but future teams as well.  

So Why Are Offer Letters Still So Dull?  

If interviewing is dating, offer letters are a marriage proposal. They carry immense weight right at the finish line of the hiring process while also acting as the first true, official onboarding step. This initial phase of the employee experience is vital if organizations want top talent to convert from candidate to employee.  

While there have been many improvements to the way that interviews and the actual onboarding process occurs, offer letters are still typically generated as lengthy, wordy PDFs that aren’t as engaging as the other steps in the process. 

In today’s world, candidates lead the process more and more, especially if they are truly skilled workers who can essentially select where and who they work for. By having a blind spot during the candidate experience, organizations may fail to close on the talent they so desperately need to attain. 

What’s the Solution? 

Simple: treat your candidates like customers by delighting them at closing to get them across the finish line. CandidateRewards makes it easy to do just that by helping you turn your offers into an engaging experience that showcases all the reasons why you are an employer of choice. 

With CandidateRewards, your offer letter can be transformed from a PDF email into a full-fledged website that’s specifically designed for each candidate, allowing you to fully explain rewards while engaging candidates in a new and exciting way.  

Instead of telling candidates your full value proposition, show them. On the CandidateRewards platform, individuals can play around with your benefits packages to see the full value you offer. They can also see video content from executives, understand your mission and core values, and much more.  

By turning an offer letter from just that, a letter, into a complete experience, organizations can convert more candidates into new hires, kicking off the employee experience with a bang that will resonate long term.  

Besides closing top talent faster, CandidateRewards also gives HR leaders and hiring managers insights into how engaged a candidate is by offering real-time data and behavior analytics that provide actionable items to make offers better and better into the future.  

Wrapping Up 

In today’s talent market, candidates are empowered more than ever, a fact that is further compounded by the “Great Reopening” that has followed COVID-19, which has created a talent vacuum where roles are harder and harder to fill.  

In short, attracting top-tier talent is now a top concern for employers. This has led many to renew their focus on the overall employee experience, employer branding, and attractive benefits programs that are designed to make organizations employers of choice.  

Despite this, many still have a major blind spot that isn’t covered by their next-gen ATS platforms: the offer letter.  

Making an attractive offer letter can seriously impact talent strategies by helping organizations close top talent faster and convert them into the onboarding stage of the employee experience while also helping to negate the chance of a rejected offer that can restart the recruiting phase, costing organizations more and more with every cycle.  

A simple, next-gen solution to this issue is turning the offer letter into an experience. At CandidateRewards, we do just that. We’re here to help your organization land and retain top talent by ensuring that your candidates fully understand the value proposition extended to them.