Creating Offer Approvals

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to configure offer approval workflows.

Offer Approval Configuration

Offer approvals are a critical component of a well-managed hiring process. They provide a mechanism for oversight, ensuring that offers align with company policies and budget constraints. SmartRecruiters offers flexible options for configuring offer approval chains, enabling you to tailor the approval process to your specific organizational structure.

SmartRecruiter’s job approval workflow has three phases: request, approve, and extend the offer. Admins can set up a single company-wide approval process for all offers, or different approvals for offers on specific jobs, brands, and more.

As with many features, admins can assign approvals to specific job groups by selecting a set of values for the company's active org fields. SmartRecruiters applies the approval chain to any jobs that have the same set of values for these org fields.

When someone creates an offer that is subject to approvals:

  • SmartRecruiters notifies the chain's approvers through a summary email. Approvers can then review details and approve from the email, or log into SmartRecruiters to approve.
  • Offers requiring approval cannot be sent to the candidate until approved.

Create an Approval Workflow

To create a new approval process:

Steps

  1. Navigate to Settings.

  2. Select Offer Approvals in the Configuration section.

  3. On the Offer Approvals page, select New Chain.

    The Offer approvals page displaying search field, approval chains tab, US standard approval entry, edit icon, active toggle.

  4. Give the chain a name.

    Hint

    Using clear naming conventions is essential for organizing multiple approval chains within your instance.

  5. Select values for your active org fields to assign the chain to jobs. This allows you to allocate different approval chains to different jobs within your system.

    For instance, you can set up one approval chain for offers in the marketing department and another for offers in the engineering department. If you want the approval chain to apply to all org fields, you can specify that as well. However, it's important to ensure that as more approval chains are created, they are uniquely applied to different areas within your organization.

    • To set up a global chain that applies to offers for all jobs, leave All for each field in the list.
    • To set up a chain that applies to offers on only some jobs, choose one or more values for each org field.
    The Edit approval chain is displayed with name field, brands and country selectors, preset approval toggle, Save and Cancel.

  6. Set approval chain.

    Approval chains come in four types:

    • Per-job chain: Allows job creators, such as hiring managers and recruiters, the ability to choose approvers for each offer.Approval Chain panel explaining optional chains, with description text and a Preset an approval chain toggle.
    • Parallel chain: Multiple approvers can approve the offer simultaneously.

      This can expedite the approval process as users will be able to approve in their own time

    • Sequential chain: Approval requests are sent in a specific order. Each approver in the chain must approve the offer before it moves to the next approver.

      Note

      This can be useful if earlier approvers are likely to reject as later approvers will not be notified.
    • Integration chain: If you're using external integration for offer approvals, you can select this option.
    The Approval Chain panel is displayed with preset toggle enabled, tabs for Sequential/Parallel/Integration, approver dropdown, Add, Save, Cancel.

  7. Add Approvers to the chain by selecting Select an Approver.

    1. If you choose Hiring Manager, Recruiter, Executive, or Coordinator, any user on the hiring team with that role will become an approver.

    2. Choose named users to include specific individuals within the organization.

    3. Choose Named user to designate a specific user by name. This user does not have to be on the hiring team. The user will be prompted to identify the approver when submitting for approval.

  8. Select Save. The saved approval chain will appear in the Details list.

  9. Return to the Offer Approvals page and use the Active switch to enable the offer approval chain. Once activated, the approval chain will apply to all relevant offers based on the organizational fields you specified.

Additional Offer Approval Settings

The offer approval settings also include several additional options:

  • Approver Access to the Offer: This setting determines whether approvers retain access to the offer after it is approved. When this option is toggled on, it removes an approver's access to the offer after it is approved.
  • Approver on the Offer: This setting allows approvers or an admin to delegate approval to another user. This is useful when an approver is unavailable.
  • Authentication Setting: This setting determines whether users must be authenticated in SmartRecruiters to access the offer approval.

Note

These settings can be toggled on or off as needed to customize the approval process.

Hint

Best Practice - Have users who approve offers and jobs use the Delegate approvals option if they will be out of the office. Delegate approvals can be found by clicking Settings→Delegate approvals.

Offer Approval Workflow Management

When you extend an offer, the offer approval chain will be automatically applied. You'll see a third step in the offer process for setting up the offer approval. The system will pull in the approval chain that you recently configured, and the named user will be the expected approver.

Skip Approver

In the case where an approver is not available, an administrator can skip one or more approvers on a job or offer to help hiring teams move forward. Here is an example:

  1. The recruiter notices that an offer approver is out of the office and informs the administrator.
  2. The administrator checks the profile and decides to skip the last approver.
  3. The administrator selects a value and confirms the action.
  4. The system displays the name of the administrator who skipped the approver, with a time/date-stamp.

Sending for Approval and Approving/Rejecting Offers

You can add comments to the approval request and then send it for approval. The approver can then either approve or reject the offer, adding comments to explain their reasoning.

Once all approvers have either approved or declined the request, SmartRecruiters will:

  1. Notify the requester by email:An example Offer approved message displaying candidate details, salary, approvers with green checkmarks, and View Details button.
  2. Update the job's offer status details:The Approvals list displaying two approvers with green checkmarks, comment box, and buttons to send offer; Offer approved is highlighted.

Note

Once the offer is approved, you can send it to the candidate via email or DocuSign, if your company has an active DocuSign integration.

Watch this video for a demo of how this process of creating offer approvals works.

This video is for demonstration purposes. Any references made in this video to previous or later videos in this course (including titles, numbers, links, or sequence) may differ from the current course structure. Additionally, some functionalities shown may have evolved over time due to ongoing enhancements or business decisions.

Summary

  • Offer approval chains ensure proper oversight in the hiring process within SmartRecruiters.
  • Approval chains can be customized based on organizational fields, allowing for tailored approval processes.
  • SmartRecruiters offers sequential, parallel, and integration approval chain types to suit different organizational needs.

Learning

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