Negotiating, it is known, is a real art that can be practiced and improved with experience. The Covid era has brought with it the need to address “virtually” the decisive and crucial stages of decision-making processes and, increasingly, the final negotiation phase downstream of a selection process.
Negotiating successfully certainly requires preparation and a good level of self-awareness, which enable one to thoroughly analyze one’s own point of view and that of the other party.
As precise and detailed as the analyses we do or the ideas we may have, as executive search professionals, it is essential to fully understand the needs of the two counterparts – company and candidate – and to keep a firm focus on the objective. Specifically, the closing of a selection project requires patience and an important ability to communicate and mediate messages by always transferring them in a positive key, maintaining an open channel made up of openness and trust, providing practical evidence to the interlocutors.
The current scenario
While it used to be that the chosen professional arrived at the end of the process motivated and proud of the outcome, today’s job market shows us that often the candidate:
- Has multiple selection processes open in parallel;
- Is much more focused on evaluating economic aspects;
- is more likely to reject and abandon an offer that does not perfectly fit his or her professional, personal, and work-life balance expectations than to negotiate its terms.
The latter aspect sometimes reaches such a behavioral drift that it even leads the candidate to “disappear” and cut off communication. An attitude that can be disadvantageous both for the company, which has invested time and resources and sees itself lengthening the selection time, and for the candidate, for whom maintaining an open and constructive dialogue with the head hunter can be beneficial with respect to future professional opportunities.
In this complex landscape, the role of the head hunter in being able to anticipate, mediate and negotiate with the company and the candidate at the final stage of the selection process becomes crucial. How?
First, by moving the discussion to the level of trust and transparency.
With companies, transferring the importance of formulating economic offers in line with the market:
- bringing to their evidence context-specific information and average salaries for the positions sought;
- highlighting the complexity of the search, combined with the opportunity to possibly invest extra budget on the candidate rather than in additional selection costs.
With the candidate at the closing stage, keeping the contact warm, alive, open to feedback even in the absence of firm decisions. It is useful, for example:
- support him or her with a pre-interview contact where they try to take stock of the key aspects of the application and “prepare” him or her for the meeting and the interlocutors;
- stimulate hot feedback at the end of the interview, and possibly even the next day, for a more “reasoned” judgment and perhaps already mediated by the family discussion;
- request, downstream of the interview with the client company, a brief e-mail reflection on the aspects that may have most impressed him or her, further exploring the motivational aspects as well.
Certainly, the opportunities that technology offers today facilitate opportunities and possibilities for contact. However, even in selection processes, there remain areas where the advantages of the face-to-face relationship continue to make a difference. The concluding phase of the negotiation is one of these, as, when handled vis-à-vis, it allows for an agreement based on mutual trust and a human touch that no virtual medium can ever replace.
The handshake, the look and the feeling with the person the customer chooses for their organization, and who in turn makes a choice, remains an essential component ofengagement for both parties.
