Job Offer? No Thanks.

Recently a friend of mine applied for a job in a company. He went for the usual 3 or 4 rounds of interviews. Finally, the HR called and said that they are taking a risk in him and offering a job. My friend was stunned. He never expected that the HR would make such a stupid statement while making a job offer.

When I heard about this, I asked two people known to me. One is a CEO of a medium sized Company. He is a U.S. born Indo-American. Another one is a well known HR specialist in USA. She has written a book and also writes her own blog. In order to protect the identity of my friend, I told both of them I received a job offer with this statement from HR. Here is what they have to say:

The CEO told me over the phone that it is a negotiation tactic to reduce the compensation package. It is also a tactic to put the prospective employee on guard for the next 2 or 3 years. You will work hard to prove you are not a risk and won’t ask for any salary increase. He also said: Actually, you should tell the HR person that they need not take a risk on you. And, you should also tell them that you have 3 other job offers and if they want you, they should “sell” their company to you”

The HR specialist wrote me an email. I was surprised she responded to my email within one hour. Here is what she wrote:

“It's one of two things. Either it's a negotiation tactic, like you suspect, designed to make you not ask for more money, or it's an awkward attempt at a compliment. I can think of a couple of times when I've said to a candidate who knew her experience was on the light side, "We had candidates with more experience than you, but ultimately we were really impressed with your ____ and think you would excel in the job." It's possible that the HR person was going for something like that and screwed up the delivery.

On the other hand, do you think you're a risk? If it's clear that you're not the traditional ideal candidate for the role but you pushed for them to take a risk on a new approach, then maybe she was just acknowledging that. But if that were the case, you probably wouldn't be asking me.

And frankly, the reality is that every hire is a risk to one degree or another. People can blow you away in an interview and then crash and burn once on the job. But hiring managers don't normally feel the need to remind candidates of that when making an offer.”

Yes, hiring managers will not say this to a prospective employee. But the HR makes stupid statements. (If there are any readers who read my posts regularly and happen to be an HR person, you are an exception. Hey, I don't want to lose my readers.)

My friend politely declined the job offer. Good for him.

What do you think? Looking forward to reading your views.