Offers and Hiring Decisions

When the team decides to hire a candidate, OpenATS helps you prepare an offer, send it through a private link, and record the candidate's response.

Before creating an offer

Make sure:

• The candidate belongs to the correct job.
• The candidate has reached an Offer stage in that job's hiring pipeline.
• The offer details and offer letter content have been approved by the people responsible for the hire.
• An email template is available if you want to generate the offer letter from a reusable template.

Only Super Admins and Hiring Managers can create, edit, send, or delete offers.

Move the candidate to an offer stage

1. Open Manage Jobs and select the job.
2. Select Hiring Pipeline in the job header.
3. Drag the selected candidate into a stage whose type is Offer, or open the candidate profile and change the stage there.
4. Save the stage change.

When a candidate enters an Offer-type stage, OpenATS automatically creates a draft offer if the candidate does not already have one. The draft is not sent to the candidate until a hiring manager completes and sends it.

If an offer was not created automatically, open the candidate's Offer tab and select Generate Offer while the candidate is in an Offer-type stage.

Complete the draft offer

1. Open Candidates and select the candidate.
2. Open the Offer tab.
3. Select Edit on the draft offer.
4. Optionally select an email template from Template.
5. Enter the Salary and Currency.
6. Select the Employment Type.
7. Enter the Start Date.
8. Optionally set Respond by, the last day the candidate can answer. The offer stays open for the whole of that day. Leave it empty for an offer with no end date.
9. Enter the Reporting Manager.
10. Add the Benefits included in the offer.
11. Enter or generate the Offer Letter content.
12. Select Save Draft while the offer is still being reviewed.

To generate the letter from the selected template, select Generate from template. OpenATS renders the template with the candidate and offer details and places the result in the offer-letter editor. Review the rendered content before saving.

Send the offer

Before sending, confirm that the draft contains all required fields: salary, currency, employment type, start date, reporting manager, benefits, and offer-letter content.

1. Select Send Offer.
2. Confirm that the success message says the offer was sent.
3. Open the candidate's Offer tab or Manage Offers to check the current status.

OpenATS sends the candidate an email with a private offer-review link. The link lets the candidate view the offer details and offer letter without signing in.

An offer normally moves through these states:

• Draft: created but not sent.
• Sent: sent and waiting for the candidate.
• Viewed: the offer was shown on the candidate's screen. Opening the link is not enough, because email security scanners open links automatically; the status changes when the page is actually displayed in a browser.
• Accepted: the candidate accepted the offer.
• Declined: the candidate declined the offer.
• Expired: the Respond by date passed with no answer. The candidate can still open the link and read the offer, but can no longer accept or decline it.

Candidate reviews the offer

The candidate opens the private link from the email and reviews the salary, employment type, start date, reporting manager, benefits, and offer letter. They can choose Accept offer or Decline while the offer is in a responseable state.

When a Respond by date is set, the candidate sees it above the buttons, in their own time zone.

After the candidate responds, the status is updated in OpenATS and the hiring team can see the response from the candidate profile or Manage Offers.

An offer can be answered once. If the candidate presses a button twice, or accepts in one tab and declines in another, only the first answer counts.

After an answer, the offer is locked

Once an offer is Accepted, Declined or Expired, its salary, dates, benefits and letter can no longer be edited. They are the record of what the candidate was shown when they answered. To change the terms after that, agree them with the candidate outside OpenATS and record the outcome in the candidate's notes.

Mark the candidate as hired

Acceptance and hiring are separate actions. After verifying the accepted offer:

1. Open the candidate's Offer tab.
2. Confirm that the offer status is Accepted.
3. Select Mark as Hired.

This updates the candidate's status to hired and records the final action in the candidate's history.

If the candidate declines, keep the response in the offer record and move the candidate to the appropriate closed stage. Do not delete the candidate if you need to preserve the recruitment history.