Berlin Survey Results — Part 5: What makes a job offer unrefusable
By: Wilbur Von Biscuit
Tags: Job Offer, Candidate Experience, Tech Recruiting, Berlin Tech, Hiring

In our previous article, we’ve looked at positive recruitment journeys of Berlin’s tech candidates. The recipe for a great recruitment process is simple: it should be fast, job-relevant, and thoughtful. Another essential ingredient, among others, is quick and actionable feedback.

A developer’s positive experience during the recruitment process is likely to increase the chances of her or him accepting a job offer from the company. Or, at least, recommending the company to others.

But what other job offer acceptance factors are there? What makes tech professionals in Berlin say YES?

What persuades people to accept a job offer?

According to our survey, the top factor turned out to be Salary (picked by 73.2% respondents). And it is not that surprising.

The fact that Berlin’s tech professionals have overly high salary expectations was mentioned in a Tagesspiegel article from September 27. And this seems to be the number one reason why Berlin-based tech founders struggle to find new employees.

Experienced (more senior) colleagues came in second in our survey, with slightly less than half participants (46.3%) upvoting it. There were also a few individual responses closely related to this one:

“Mentor to learn from” “Nice/competent people to work with”

Flexible office time, selected by 35.4% tech professionals, is the third-top offer acceptance factor.

Other factors of importance were: Strong company culture, Financial security of the company, Working remotely, Freedom to choose technologies, and Number of holidays.

Horizontal hierarchy, together with Pension plan and insurance were favoured by less than 10% respondents each.

Offer acceptance factors

What else was mentioned?

Here are the individual responses, which we’ve collected under “Other”:

“Exciting projects and tasks” or, similarly, “Interesting and challenging tasks”

“Specific industry”

“The scope of the project”

“Salary was not so high, but I felt like this company is not structured so well, but they already have money. So, I can grow almost in any direction I want.” (That’s something in-between the hiring company’s technological flexibility and its financial security.)

“Pet-friendly office”

It’s worth noting that nobody remembered about ping-pong tables, gym access, free beer, or game consoles. Meanwhile, some companies sincerely hope to use perks like these in job ads to lure developers.

A good mix of things

We’ve learned what comes on people’s mind first when they think about a tempting job offer. Unsurprisingly, it’s salary, followed by more senior colleagues and flexible office times.

Yet, it’s also important to understand that “a balance of all factors is important,” as Ben, a Senior DevOps Engineer pointed out to us. His recipe of an unrefusable offer makes perfect sense:

“Salary is a major [factor], but also important is the team fit, having a good mix of experiences and seniorities within the team, the work and the role, breadth of the role, tech direction and vision, easygoing attitudes, the company in general and what it does, the office and its location, and, of course, flexible office time and working arrangements.”

So, when handing in an offer, let’s make sure that the candidate has a good and clear understanding of all the above.