Closing senior hires without losing your position

Senior candidates almost never accept the first number. That is not a failure of your offer; it is a feature of the market they operate in. The mistake most companies make is treating the counter as a negotiation, when it is actually a diagnostic — the candidate is telling you what they are worried about, and the number is usually the least of it.

What the counter actually means

In roughly seven of ten cases where a senior candidate counters, the underlying concern is not compensation. It is scope, reporting line, remote flexibility, equity refresh cadence, or a specific person on the team. If you respond to the number without diagnosing the concern, you will match the number and still lose the candidate.

The three-conversation close

• Conversation one, the read: 'Before we talk about the offer, what would make this a decision you regret in six months?' Listen for what they name first.
• Conversation two, the address: come back with a specific answer to the specific concern. If it is scope, put it in writing from the hiring manager. If it is a person, arrange the conversation.
• Conversation three, the number: only once the qualitative concerns are addressed. Offers made in this order are more likely to land well than offers made in the reverse order.

Never negotiate against yourself

The single most expensive habit we see is companies improving their own offer without the candidate having asked. It signals that the first number was not honest, which teaches the candidate that every subsequent number is also negotiable. Make one strong offer, explain how you arrived at it, and then hold the line unless the candidate returns with a specific competing number in writing.

"The best offers we've seen close were not the highest. They were the ones where the candidate could describe, unprompted, exactly what they were being hired to do."