Creating & Sending Offer Letters

Sending offer letters right from the candidate's profile in Hire provides a fast and seamless experience for both the candidate and the HR team.  In addition, it keeps all of your candidates' information in one spot as a complete system of record and keeps your offer letter options paperless.

Ready to send offer letters but don't see this feature in your account? Reach out to your account manager or the support team at hire@trakstar.com

Enroll in our eLearning course, or scroll down to learn more!

Click below to jump to different parts of the offer letter creation process

Setting Up the Offer Letter

Set up the Placeholders

You'll need to set up templates for any offer letters you send.  To do this, you'll customize your offer letter with placeholders.  These placeholders will be where the job details you provide - such as start date and salary - populate and pull data from the candidate's profile and job opening to customize the offer letter fully.  You can add as many offer letter templates as you need.

The placeholders allow the offer letters to ask as templates and can be used across multiple candidates and openings!  You may want to create various offer letter templates for different departments, roles, part-time vs. full-time, or office locations.

Any Super Admin can set up offer letter templates.  Once built, any user with access to email candidates can send the offer letter via the offer stage or directly from the candidate's profile.

To begin, we'll set up the placeholders.  Navigate to Settings > Offer Settings > Offer placeholders within your account.

From this page, you can view the required placeholders that are already set and add additional custom placeholders.  If the current placeholders are all you need, you're set - you don't need to add any more.

To add a new placeholder, click on Add placeholder.

When creating a new placeholder, you'll type in what text you'd like to describe the placeholder, and we'll create it.  You can also choose the answer type. 

You'll be prompted to add the details about your placeholder.  The Label is the prompt the user will see when generating the offer letter, so they know what data to enter in the text field.  The Placeholder is the text you'll need to place in your offer letter template to pull this data.  The Type is how the user will enter this information when generating the offer letter.

Make sure to click on Add placeholder to save once you're done!

Note: Placeholders are case sensitive and must be all lowercase - in both the placeholder field and the offer letter template.

Create Your Offer Letter Template

Once you've set up your placeholders, it's time to create your offer templates!  Navigate to Settings > Offer Settings > Offer templates to get started.

From here, you can view all existing offer letters in your account.  You'll be able to see the title and who created the offer letters and can edit them via the Edit icon.

You'll also see the option to manage offer placeholders right from this page!

To create a new template, click on Create offer template.  From this page, you will enter the Template Name and can add a description as well, if you'd like.  You'll select the current user who you'd like to act as the Offer signatory, who is the internal signer for your company.

After selecting these two options, you'll be prompted to upload your Offer letter document.  This is the offer letter you will send, complete with the desired placeholders.  You may already have an offer letter your team uses that you want to edit and add the placeholders, or you can borrow our sample! Check out some options here. The offer letter must be in DOCX format.

The offer letter has the following required placeholders that must be included in the template:

  • Candidate First Name {{candidate-first-name}}
  • Candidate Last Name {{candidate-last-name}}
  • Company Name {{company-name}}
  • Opening {{opening}}
  • Offer Expiration Date {{offer-expiry-date}}
  • Salary {{salary}}
  • Candidate eSign {{candidate-esign}
  • Offer Signatory Name {{offer-signatory-name}}
  • Offer Signatory eSign {{offer-signatory-esign}}

After uploading your document, you'll see it displayed, and all of the placeholders will be highlighted in yellow.  This means the system has identified them correctly and will be customized before sending them to your candidate.  

If any of your placeholders are not highlighted in yellow, confirm that:

  • The custom placeholders have been created in your account
  • You are using double curly brackets {{ and not regular brackets [[ in the offer letter
  • The placeholders are all lowercase in the offer letter

Then try re-uploading the document by clicking on Remove next to the document name in the upper left corner.  You can click on View all offer placeholders to add more placeholders if needed.

When everything looks correct, click on Save and Proceed to continue.

Create the Email Template

Once your offer letter template has been created, you'll create the email that goes along with the offer letter.  This email can be customized, as with any email template in the system, and can include fillable fields such as the candidate's name, company name, opening, and more.  You'll want to be sure to include the fillable field {{offer-letter-link}} - this is a direct link to view and sign the offer letter.

These messages are also saved under Settings > Email Templates

When done, click on Save and proceed to continue.

Pro Tip: Learn what words and phrases can potentially trigger spam filters so that you can ensure your emails are making it to the candidate's primary inbox, and not their spam folder!

Set Up Approval Workflow

Finally, you can enable an approval workflow for your offer letter.  This allows you to set up three levels of approval for the offer letter before it is delivered to the candidate.  This is an excellent option if you need a manager or director to sign off on the offer letter content.

When an approval process is in place, any offer letter is first sent to the approvers.  It is automatically sent to the candidate when all levels approve it.  If anyone does not approve the offer letter and requests changes, the approval chain will begin again.

By detail, this option is disabled.  Click on the toggle button next to Disabled to turn it on.

Once enabled, you can add the users you'd like to approve the offer letter.  If you need more levels, click on Add one more level of approvers - up to three levels.  You can add multiple approvers to each level, but only one user from each level is required to approve it before it moves on.

Note: Hiring Team Members cannot be set as approvers on offer letters.

When all the users have been added, click on Save Template.  You've just set up your offer letter!

Create Offer Stages on Openings

Now that your offer letter template is complete, you can add this specific template directly to your opening's hiring workflow.  Typically, this is one of the last stages in an opening, if not the final one.  Hire has a special stage just for sending offer letters!

To begin, navigate to the opening you'd like to edit, then click on Job Settings.  From the Hiring stages section, click on +Add a new stage.

Select the  Offer stage as the stage type.

Add a name for the stage, which is internal only, and then pick a coordinator.  The coordinator is the user responsible for the action taken in this stage, so we suggest making it whoever will send the offer letter out.  Then Select an offer template from the ones you have set up in your system.

Be sure to hit Save, and this stage will now appear in your opening.  

Want to learn more about stages in general? Click here to learn about the other stage types!

Sending a Candidate an Offer Letter

Generate an Offer Letter

Let's go over how to generate an offer letter for a candidate! 

Move them from the candidate's profile to the Offer Stage of the opening.  You'll see an option to Generate an offer in the stage - click this to get started!

Alternatively, you can click the Offer tab at any time to generate the offer - or view an existing offer letter.

You'll see all your placeholders as fields on the Generate an offer page.  Some data will be pulled in from the candidate's profile, and you can edit it as needed (for example, adding a candidate's legal name vs. a nickname).

Once you've confirmed and entered all the information, click on the  Preview offer letter to continue.  This will show you what the offer letter will look like!  If you need to make any changes or edits, click on Back in the top left corner.  If you're ready to proceed, click Save and proceed.

You'll now be able to edit the message sent with the offer letter to the candidate.  This will pull the email template associated with the offer letter, but you can make edits and changes if you'd like.  You can also select from other templates in the top right corner.  When you're done, click on Send for approval.

If no approval levels are set, it will go directly to the candidate.

If approval levels are set, it will auto-send to the candidate once the approvers have signed off on the offer.

Want to check in on the status of the offer letter?  Click on the Offer tab of the candidate's profile.

Offer Letter Approval

Any users you've set up as approvers will receive an email notification and alert on their Hire dashboard, asking them to approve the offer letter.  This email includes details from the placeholders and options to approve, suggest changes, or view the candidate's profile.  The offer letter is also sent as an attachment.  

If any level of approval makes a suggested change to the letter, the approval process will start back at the lowest level again. Suggested changes are recorded as private comments in the candidate's profile.

Once approved, the person who sent the offer letter receives an email notification.

Signing the Offer Letter

Once the offer letter has been approved, it is sent to the internal signatory.   They can view and sign the offer from the email or by clicking on the Offer tab of the candidate's profile.

Once the offer is signed, the candidate will receive the email you created and a link to the offer letter.  This is recorded in the Emails tab of the candidate's profile, sent from the person who initiated the offer letter process and marked as private.

Once the candidate has signed the offer letter, a note stating that the candidate has accepted the offer will appear on their profile.  You can see the final copy in the Offer tab and download it here.  We also email a copy to the candidate and alert the user who sent the offer letter.

Canceling an Offer Letter

Offer letters can be canceled or edited during the approval process and canceled anytime before a candidate signs them.

Once the candidate has signed an offer letter, the process is complete and cannot be edited or canceled.

Got a question about this process? We are here to help.  Reach out to us at hire@trakstar.com

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