Send an Offer Letter
How do I send an offer letter to a candidate?
Purpose: To show you how to send an offer letter to a candidate. Offer letters in BambooHR's Applicant Tracking System make the hiring process seamless and provide a delightful experience for your new hires.
Candidate profile
To send an offer letter to a candidate, navigate the Hiring tab to select the specific job opening. Click on the candidate's name to be taken to their profile. Under the status list, select Create Offer Letter. Please note that the candidate must have a candidate profile in order to send them an Offer Letter.
You can grant a user access to Send and Manage Offer Letters when creating a custom access level. You can find this setting under Hiring in the "What can People with this Access Level do?" section. This access needs to couple with one of the following:
1) To grant a user access to send Offer Letters, you will need to grant them access to Manage Job Openings and Candidates. You can find this setting under Hiring in the "What can People with this Access Level do?" section when creating a custom access level.
2) To grant a user access to create Offer Letter templates, you will need to grant them access to Hiring under the settings of "What can People with this Access Level do?" section when creating a custom access level.
You can learn more about creating a custom access level here.
Create an offer letter
Review the candidate's home email address to make sure it is correct before sending the offer letter. Select the offer template you would like to use.
Fill out the *Job Info and Compensation details for the information to auto-populate in the offer letter. Do not forget to add any necessary company files.
The picture and contact information of the person listed in the Who to Contact field will be in the offer letter, which facilitates employee connection by connecting a face with a name.
Once you complete reviewing the information, click Preview Offer & Send. If you are not ready to send it yet, you can save it as a draft. See below for more information.
*If you do not see the information you are looking for in one of the drop-down menus (for example, job title), you will need to add the option in Settings > Employee Fields.
If you click Save Draft, a draft of the offer letter and email will be saved, and you will be taken to the Offer tab of the candidate's profile. Here, there are some draft options and information:
- Clicking Finish & Send Offer will take you back to the offer letter creation page. You can make any edits if needed, preview and send the offer, or save an updated draft.
- You can download a PDF version of the offer letter by clicking Download Draft.
- You will see information on when the draft was created and by whom on the timeline. The draft information will be removed once you send the offer letter.
- See a quick overview of the offer letter information here.
- See Full Offer will pull up a preview of the offer letter email.
Once you are previewing the offer letter, you will see an option to edit it or send the offer letter to the candidate.
The Offer tab
Once the offer letter sends, the Offer tab will appear on the candidate's profile, and you can track the status of the offer letter. Each part of the timeline will include the date and timestamp. Additionally, you can view the number of times the candidate has viewed the offer letter.
You can also view, revise, or cancel the offer when needed.
When the candidate signs the offer, the candidate's status changes to Offer Signed. You will no longer be able to cancel the offer at that point. The Cancel Offer link will change to See Signed Offer, which shows you a PDF version of the signed offer letter. A certificate will be in the PDF document that records the dates and times that documents were requested and signed, the name and email address of the requester/signer(s), and the IP address used for each action. The certificate will also assign the signed document a unique document ID.
Once the candidate has signed the offer letter, you will receive an email notification. You can then click Hire [candidate's name] to hire the candidate and start the onboarding experience in BambooHR.
After hiring the candidate, their signed offer letter will automatically upload and share in the Resumes and Applications folder on the Documents tab in their employee profile.
Job listing
On the job listing page you will see a callout that lets you know if an offer letter was started or sent. If there is more than one offer out, you will be able to click View Offers and see a list of all the open offers. You will also see an icon next to any candidate who has either been sent an offer letter, or has a drafted offer letter saved.
Email notification of an offer letter
The candidate will receive an email notification that includes the exact information written in the offer letter template. To review and sign the offer letter, they will click View Offer Letter.
Offer letter
The candidate will need to fill out the required information, sign any required documents and the letter before they can click Accept Offer.
The candidate can fill in the signature field by typing or drawing a signature with their mouse. Also, the candidate can type the date of the signature or select the date from a drop-down calendar.
Congratulations
Once the candidate signs the offer letter, they will see a confirmation message. If the offer letter has any attached documents, they will see an option to download them immediately since those will not send to the candidate via email. If they did not sign or download the documents, they will not have access to them through the offer letter email. They will see the name of whom they can contact for a copy of their documents. You can also send documents through onboarding if needed.
You accepted your offer!
Shortly after the candidate signs the offer letter, they will receive an email notification with an attached PDF of the signed offer letter.
Note that if you have set an expiration date, the candidate will still be able to view and sign the offer after that date. Enforcement of the expiration date will remain with you as a company.
Offer accepted (Recruiter)
You, who sent the offer letter to the candidate, will receive an email confirmation once the candidate has signed the offer letter.
You can revise an unsigned offer letter at any time by clicking Revise Offer. However, there is not a way to revise a signed offer letter. If this situation arises, you will need to send a new offer letter (see below).
Clicking the button opens the offer editor, and you can make changes just like you could when creating the offer.
Once everything looks great, you can preview the offer letter again before sending it. The system will notify you that this offer letter will replace the current version available for the candidate.
Timeline revisions
Every revision to an offer letter will indicate in the offer timeline. The timeline will show how many times the offer is revised to indicate multiple revisions. You will also see the number of times the candidate viewed the offer letter before and after a revision action.
If there are several revisions, there will be a drop-down menu including different revision dates that you can select from to view. We will only show one revision point on the timeline to keep the most up-to-date information readily available as you are looking at a candidate.
You can click See old versions to view previous versions of an offer letter. You can also view the specifics that have changed within the older versions. Click on a revision action you would like to see.
You will also be able to see details like who sent that version and when.
Anyone who has access to Create and Manage Offer Letters for a candidate can revise an offer letter. Who revised an offer letter and the date of their revision actions will show in the revision history, so you will always know what is happening.
Candidate experience
When a user revises an offer letter and sends a new offer letter, it will replace the existing offer letter. The candidate will receive another offer email that allows them to view the updated offer letter. If they try to go to the old offer letter, we will let them know of an updated version they need to sign and take them there.
If the candidate has already signed the offer letter and you need to make any revisions, you can send a new offer letter. To do this, navigate to the candidate's profile, click on the dropdown on the right side and select Send New Offer. This will walk you through the same process as sending an initial offer letter.
Once you send the new offer letter, the timeline and Offer Details will be replaced to reflect the new offer letter. To view any previous offers sent, click Previous Offers and select the letter you would like to view.
If the offer letter was never signed, you can go to the candidate’s profile and click Cancel Offer. However, there is not a way to formally rescind a signed offer letter. That said, there are a few different ways to handle this situation:
- If you’d like to keep the candidate profile and offer letter for historical purposes, no action is required.
- If you’d like to keep the candidate profile and remove the signed offer letter, you can refresh the candidate profile by moving the candidate to a different job opening.
- If you no longer need the candidate profile and signed offer letter, you can delete the candidate. To do so, navigate to the candidate’s profile, click the gear under the stars and select Delete Candidate.
After deciding on one of the above options, you may want to change the candidate’s status to one of the inactive statuses under Not Hired Because… Additionally, if you already added the candidate as an employee, your Account Owner could consider deleting the employee profile and/or deleting the signed offer letter under the employee’s Documents tab.