“How can you be a candidate’s advocate when you’re being secretive about something as important as compensation?”

I had the pleasure of speaking with the MaRS Discovery District about emerging compensation trends in talent attraction and retention. 

The highlight for me was chatting about how to frame compensation discussions with prospective talent for a win-win.

There was a time when your goal as a recruiter was to stay silent for as long as possible until a candidate gave you a number. It was tense. We wouldn’t reveal anything and it created this unfair balance between recruiters and their candidates. 

So my approach has changed over the years. I usually kick-start the conversation by telling a candidate about our core compensation and people program offerings. I check in to see if I’ve covered what they expected and then if I’m recruiting for a role where we have an identified salary band, I’ll share with them where we expect to bring someone in. This transparency is important.

My goal is simple - I don’t want to waste anyone’s time. If our compensation is way off, let’s identify that now and decide how we should proceed. This idea of putting all the pressure on candidates is not the type of recruitment experience I want to create.

You can watch the full interview here:

https://learn.marsdd.com/article/framing-compensation-expectations-in-a-talent-driven-market/