The almost-offer holding pattern is killing my team's momentum

I've found that keeping candidates warm during these delays is key, so I make sure to check in with them weekly, even if it's just a quick call to say we're still on track. This way they feel like we're still invested in them and they're not left wondering what's going on. I also ask my hiring managers to send a personal email to the candidates, just to keep that connection alive and show we're all still keen to get them on board.

Honestly I made a similar mistake last year when I didn't keep our finance team in the loop, it turned out they had a completely different budget cycle than I thought, so now I make sure to get their buy in from the start.

Given my experience with 5 restructuring exercises I thought using Trello to track progress with our candidates would keep everyone on the same page, but it actually made things worse as it just highlighted the delays to the candidates. We ended up with 12 frustrated emails from them in a single week, so I had to scrap that approach and go back to basic phone calls.

From my experience sitting through restructures, it's really important to manage expectations on both sides, so I always make sure to set up a holding email that goes out automatically after a week of no update, just to let candidates know we're still on track. This way they don't feel forgotten and our team doesn't have to spend time on individual check ins. I've found it also helps to give our finance team a bit of a nudge, as they know the candidate is still waiting for an update and it might prompt them to give us a firmer timeline.

I'm seeing a similar thing at my new company, we've got a few roles on hold due to a review of our departmental budgets, and it's getting tough to keep candidates engaged. My team's finding that offering a clear timeline for when we expect to get budget approval is helping to manage expectations, even if it's not the answer they want to hear.

Normally I'd suggest getting the CFO to give you a rough timeline for when they'll have budget signed off, that way you can manage expectations with the candidates. I've also found it helpful to ask the hiring managers to reach out to the candidates directly, it keeps them in the loop and shows we're still interested in them.

I had a similar issue last month with a candidate for a sales role, where I didn't get an update to them for 10 days and they ended up taking another offer, so now I'm using Calendly to schedule regular check ins with candidates who are in limbo. My team's been using Asana to track the hiring process and it's helped us stay on top of things, but I think I need to get better at communicating with our finance team, maybe set up a weekly meeting with them to get updates on the budget sign off.