Practice knowledge base
Offer Review and hiring SLA
Offer Review and a hiring SLA set a response timeline for candidates and make sure the offer matches what was agreed during the interview process.
Documentation sections
What it is
This is a process that happens before sending an offer: the hiring owner checks the terms against the candidate’s expectations, interview notes, and internal approval rules. The SLA defines who gives feedback to the candidate and within what working timeframe after key stages. This practice helps you avoid losing trust because of silence, late decisions, and mismatches between what was promised in interviews and what appears in the offer document.
When it helps
- Candidates wait a long time for a decision after the final interview or offer approval.
- The offer includes terms that differ from what was discussed during the interview.
- The recruiter, hiring manager, and finance team have different understandings of the agreed terms.
- New employees discover a gap between expectations and the actual role when they start.
How to start
- 1 Assign an offer owner: someone who checks the terms, gathers approvals, and replies to the candidate.
- 2 Create a minimum review checklist: role, level, compensation, work format, start date, and any special agreements.
- 3 Define the SLA for responses after the final interview and after internal offer approval.
- 4 Review the latest interview notes before sending the offer to remove any mismatches in the role and expectations.
- 5 Agree on a short message template for the candidate if the decision is delayed.
Expected effect
The candidate gets a clear status update faster, and the hiring team spends less time returning to approvals because of errors in the terms. It also becomes easier for the manager to protect trust in the employer: promises made in interviews are connected to what goes into the offer and the start of the role.
Common pitfalls
- Setting an SLA only for the recruiter, even though delays often come from the hiring manager or approvers.
- Checking the offer only for the compensation amount and not reviewing the role, work format, start date, and expectations.
- Promising the candidate an exact response date when there is no internal owner and no ready approval path.
- Turning the review into a lengthy committee: the check should catch mismatches, not reopen discussion of the entire hiring process.
Further reading
- Report: LinkedIn Talent Solutions, Global Talent Trends, sections on candidate experience.
- Book: Lou Adler, Hire With Your Head.
- Standard: ISO 30405, Human resource management - Guidelines on recruitment.
FAQ
Who should own this practice?
Usually, the hiring process owner or HR is responsible for the SLA and the review template. The hiring manager confirms the role content and agreements, because they are responsible for expectations at the start of the job.
Can you start without a new HR system?
Yes. To get started, a checklist in a shared document and a rule for recording the date of the next response to the candidate are enough. What matters is that the owner can see overdue items and quickly raise them with the approvers.
How can you tell whether the practice is working?
Look for fewer delayed responses, fewer manual corrections to offers, and fewer questions from new employees about why the role or terms differ from what was discussed during the interview.
What should you do if offer approval is delayed?
Don’t stay silent until the final decision. The hiring owner sends the candidate a short status update, explains that the decision is still being approved, and gives the next point of contact without making unnecessary promises.