I don't think of closing candidates as selling. I know the language. Sell the opportunity. Sell the company. Sell the team. Close the candidate.
And yes, part of recruiting is helping someone understand why an opportunity might be exciting. I want candidates to understand the work, the people, the possibilities, and what they could be walking into. But I don't want to convince somebody to want something they don't actually want.
Those are very different things. Because an offer isn't a transaction to the person receiving it. It's a decision. Sometimes a really big one.
They may be leaving a team they love. Taking a risk. Changing what they work on. Betting on a manager they've only met a few times. Choosing between opportunities. Thinking about compensation, growth, stability, flexibility, family, ambition, and a hundred other things I may never know about. My job is not to make that decision for them. My job is to help them have enough information to make it well.
I want to know what matters before we're at the offer.
I don't think closing starts when the offer is ready. By then, I should know something about you. What are you looking for? Why are you even considering leaving? What would make the next thing worth it? What are you excited about? What are you unsure about? What other decisions are you weighing?
Those conversations aren't ammunition for the close. They're context. There is a difference between understanding someone's motivations so you can manipulate them and understanding someone's motivations so you can help them evaluate whether what you're offering actually meets them. I'm interested in the second one.
Because if I know what matters to you, I can give you better information. And if I can't give you what you need? That's information, too.
I will absolutely tell you we're excited about you.
This is where I think recruiting can get a little strange. Sometimes we're so careful not to oversell that we undershare.
If your interview was amazing, I will tell you. If the team is excited, I will tell you. If a decision happened quickly because people were that enthusiastic about what you could bring, why would I make you guess?
I want candidates to feel sought after. Not chased. Not pressured.
There is something powerful about knowing that the people on the other side of a decision are genuinely excited about you. And I don't think we should hide that excitement in the name of professionalism. I can be your recruiter and still be your fan. Actually, I think those things work pretty well together.
Pressure isn't a closing strategy.
If someone hesitates, my instinct isn't to push harder. It's to get curious.
I'm picking up on something. Talk to me. Is there something you're unsure about? Is there information I can give you?
Sometimes there is. Maybe compensation isn't clear. Maybe they still have questions about the role. Maybe another opportunity is moving. Maybe something they heard during the process gave them pause. Maybe they just need time to think.
And sometimes, after all of that, the answer is still no. Okay. I mean that.
Of course I want the acceptance. I have a job to do. The team has a role to fill. We've invested time. I've probably become attached to the outcome because I'm human and recruiting is recruiting. But I'm not going to turn somebody's life decision into a pressure campaign because I have a metric.
I want them to feel good about the decision they're making, whichever way it goes. Because an acceptance you had to drag across the finish line isn't necessarily a win.
“Candidate experience” gets very real at the end.
It's easy to talk about candidate experience when everything is going well. Everyone is excited. The interviews are moving. The feedback is strong. We're heading toward an offer. Great.
I think you learn more about your candidate experience when somebody is uncertain. Or disappointed. Or when you don't have the answer they want. Or when the process takes longer than expected. Or when you're telling an exceptional person that this particular opportunity isn't going to be theirs. That's when all the language about being human-centered gets tested.
Do you still communicate? Do you follow through? Do you tell someone you don't have an update rather than disappearing? If the outcome is disappointing, do you still treat the relationship like it mattered? That is part of the experience, too. Maybe especially then.
White glove doesn't mean more.
I've realized that when I say “white glove,” people can hear extravagance. That's not what I mean. I've never thought white-glove recruiting required more money, fancy tooling, or an unreasonable number of touchpoints. It requires consideration.
If I'm going to follow up Friday, follow up Friday. If Friday comes and I still don't have an answer, that is the update. If I can make a message warmer and more thoughtful, I will. If someone wants to talk through an outcome, I'll make room for the conversation. If I'm excited about someone, I don't make them decode that from the speed of my emails. I tell them.
The interaction can be brief and still feel considered. That's important to me because I don't think care should depend on how much access someone happened to have to me during the process. I've worked with candidates over long stretches of time and others I've met only at a few points in the process.
The number of touchpoints isn't the point. What happens inside them is.
Recruiting is still a human experience.
We can automate a lot around recruiting. We should automate some of it. But somewhere inside the beautifully optimized workflow, a person is still deciding:
Do I want this?
And on the other side, another group of people is deciding:
Do we want them?
That deserves more than a closing strategy. It deserves honesty. Context. Excitement when excitement is real. Questions when something feels uncertain. Enough space for someone to make a decision without feeling managed into it.
Because I don't want someone joining a company because I gave a spectacular sales pitch. I want them joining because after everything they've learned, everyone they've met, every question they've asked, and everything they've considered, they can look at the opportunity and think:
And if the answer is no? I'd rather know that, too.