The offer acceptance rate is becoming an increasingly vital KPI for HR departments across all industry sectors. 

Offer Acceptance Rate (%) = (Number of Acceptances / Number of Offers) x 100

This ratio is used to evaluate the effectiveness of your overall recruitment strategy and helps determine the number of candidates you’ll need to interview and make offers to in order to achieve your recruiting goals. Equally important, improving your offer acceptance rate increases your ROI on talent acquisition.While offer acceptance has always mattered, it takes on increased significance in 2017 for three reasons: a tight labor market, droves of retiring Baby Boomers, and increased competition between industry sectors for talent with highly sought after skills and abilities.

What do candidates really want?

Today’s candidates­–whether they are actively seeking a job or passively willing to consider a better opportunity–have more choices.  They have greater access to information about opportunities and greater visibility to recruiters. Transparency and choice are powerful forces that can help HR transform the enterprise. If we start treating candidates and employees more like customers, we’ll improve our ability to attract, hire, motivate and retain the people we need to fuel innovation in the talent-driven economy. 

In December, as part of a comprehensive survey of candidates, we asked 950 active job seekers and 507 passive job seekers what would most influence their acceptance of a job offer. The results may surprise HR and non-HR executives alike. See for yourself in our latest infographic, 3 Top Reasons Why Candidates Accept Job Offers.

• Dignity and respect: We learned that the single most important factor in choosing to accept a job offer, cited by 35% of all respondents, is “being treated with dignity and respect throughout the hiring process.” Not compensation. Not opportunity for growth. Not job security.  Dignity and respect mattered most to 40 percent of active job seekers and 26 percent of passive job seekers.
• Job fit: Next on the list of top priorities is “believing that the job will make good use of my skills and abilities,” chosen by 23 percent of all respondents..
• Fair Compensation: Only 18 percent of respondents considered fair compensation to be the most important influence on their acceptance of a job offer, with active job seekers less concerned (12%) about this issue than passive job seekers (19%).

What does this mean for your company? 

Has your company recently evaluated the impact of its recruiting processes on candidate perceptions and experiences? Do your recruiters and hiring managers understand the importance of candidate engagement on the success of your talent acquisition initiatives? Do they understand how candidate perceptions influence their success?

The infographic, 3 Top Reasons Why Candidates Accept Job Offers, may be just what you need to instigate a comprehensive review. Forward it to your recruiters and hiring managers. Looking for ideas you can use to infuse greater engagement in your recruiting processes? Download and share the tips listed in our infographic 7 Ways to Create More Engaging Candidate Experiences.