It’s one of the best parts for both the employer and employee. After a long recruitment process, you’re finally ready to make someone’s day and officially offer them a position with your business. Hooray!

If you’re approaching the end of the interview process and are ready to take this exciting step, our email template can help you feel prepared when it comes time for communicating the important details.

What’s in this employment offer letter template?

Sometimes it can be hard to clearly put all of the important details in one email – and that’s where this letter of offer template helps.

Once you’ve called your successful applicant to let them know of the outcome, you can use our fully customisable template to share the details of their offer.

This letter and email template includes;

• A friendly introduction and congratulations
• A brief introduction to the person’s new team and manager
• A place to include the person’s start date and workplace location
• The basics of the person’s employment
• Information about next steps to take for onboarding

Download the free template now!

What is a job offer letter?

A formal job offer letter or email is an official correspondence that you send to a candidate who has successfully secured a role with your business.

A job offer letter is usually preceded by a phone call to the candidate to informally let them know that they have been successful in their application. It’s always a great feeling to share good news with someone over the phone and share in their excitement!

The job offer letter, usually sent straight after the phone call, is the more formal part of the equation. While you might have shared some initial details in the phone call, this letter will have key details like the successful candidate’s job title, start date, workplace location, reporting manager, employment status, job responsibilities, as well as details to contact the hiring manager.

Usually attached to a job offer letter is a person’s employment contract. The candidate might verbally accept the offer over the phone, but the formal acceptance generally comes in the form of signing and returning this contract.

Want to go paperless with your contracts and distribute them with ease? Make the switch to digital employment contracts.

Sometimes an employee handbook is also included as an attachment, but some businesses choose to share the employee handbook only after the new employee signs their contract. While typically a candidate has contact details already, this is also a good place to offer the business’s HR person’s contact info. It will also have an acceptance deadline date, and any further details surrounding the job position such as the anticipated start date, benefits package, and whether it is a full time position or part time role.

Can hiring managers use job offer letter templates legally?

Absolutely, hiring managers can use job letter templates legally in their business. Templates are a great starting point because they save time, ensure consistency, and cover key legal bases. You will want to ensure they’re professionally crafted and sourced from reliable platforms.

That said, it’s important to customise the template for your business. Using a generic template without tailoring it could leave out important specifics, like job details or your company policies, and that might cause confusion down the line.

Job offer letters template example

Here’s a sneak peek of our job offer letter template…

Dear [successful applicant name], 

We are delighted to offer you the position of [position title] at [company name]. We believe your skills and experience are an excellent match and we’re looking forward to having you join the team. 

You will be reporting to [manager name] and your role will be in the [department name] team.

As you can see, the template is fully customisable to your business and suitable for a variety of roles and employees. It’s a great tool to use for all of your incoming staff, and can save you time during the lengthy onboarding process.

Can an email be sent as an official job offer letter?

Generally speaking, yes!

These days, very few job offers are communicated through a letter that’s posted to the successful candidate. Busy employers don’t have time to print out letters, wait for them to be delivered, and stand by for them to be acknowledged. This can become an even more laborious process when you’re printing out employment contracts to be sent with the job offer letter.

Email is by far the most efficient and effective way to communicate a job offer. It’s fast, easy and paperless – what could be better than that! Your candidate won’t be left waiting by the letterbox for their employment details, they can be informed instantly (making it easier for them to give their official confirmation sooner!). In such a competitive recruitment market, speed is everything, and this extends to your job offers!

Struggling with the intense hiring landscape? You’re not alone! Read expert tips about talent sourcing solutions for a tough recruitment market.

Another big advantage of using a job offer email is you can attach digital contracts, like those offered by Employment Hero. Businesses using Employment Hero can use our streamlined digital contracts to secure acceptance from new employees within hours (if not minutes!). Learn more about our game-changing onboarding software.

Enjoy welcoming your new team member!

What happens after you send a job offer letter?

Hopefully after you send a job offer letter or email, you’ll get a swift response from the candidate with an excited “Yes!” and a signed employment contract.

Once you have this signed contract, your candidate has formally accepted your offer and you can get the ball rolling with their employment! Onboarding should start from the time that your new team member signs on the dotted line, so don’t overlook those important few weeks between job acceptance and first day.

Struggling to manage all of the elements of onboarding? Our free onboarding checklist makes it easy.

Does a reference check happen before or after a job offer?

Reference checks are an important part of the recruitment process. Reference checks allow hiring or HR managers to cross-reference that the candidate has the technical skills, employment history and qualifications that they say they have.

It can also be an opportunity for the hiring manager to ask about the person’s working and professional manner.

Reference checks generally occur just prior to the job offer being issued, or just after the job offer is issued. If the reference checks have not yet been completed by the time you make the offer, it’s worth making a note that the offer is “pending reference checks”.

Make sure you then complete these reference checks quickly, so you don’t delay the onboarding process!

Learn more about how to conduct an effective reference check.

Why do candidates decline job offers?

There is also a chance that your candidate will decline your job offer, or request more time to consider it. Let’s look at the most common reasons why candidates decline job offers, and consider any methods to boost your business’ appeal to secure candidates.

They have accepted another job offer

In today’s competitive jobs market, it’s likely that job seekers will be pursuing more than one role at a time. Before you even get a chance to make your offer, they may have been made another one by a different company.

This can be difficult to address, but if the person is willing to share the details of the other offer, you may be able to counter this with a higher annual base salary, additional stock options or extra benefits.

If this doesn’t work out in your favour, graciously accept defeat. You never know, they may not enjoy their first months with a new employer and return to your offer down the track.

Their current employer has countered your offer

It’s not uncommon for an employee to, while resigning from their current role, be made a counter offer to stay.

Again, you may be able to win them over with additional perks or remuneration, but it could be difficult to convince them if they’re not sold on taking the plunge on a new opportunity.

They don’t find your salary competitive

A very common reason why candidates walk away from job offers is that they’re just not satisfied with the salary on offer.

You can try to work around this by asking what the candidate’s salary expectations are in the first interview. You should also do your research to make sure that your offer aligns with the market standard, and be prepared to negotiate if you can.

There aren’t enough progression opportunities

During the hiring process, it’s likely that your candidate asked some questions about the position’s job duties, the team and progression opportunities within the business. If it turns out that the position doesn’t have the progression possibilities they were looking for, they may decline your job offer.

At this point, you may decide to graciously acknowledge their decline and continue with other job offers. You want to be transparent about the opportunities available, and if that doesn’t line up with their career plan, someone else may be more suitable.

They didn’t enjoy the candidate experience

Your candidate is unlikely to share this reason for declining an offer with you, but it’s possible that they did not enjoy the candidate experience during the hiring process.

If you find that you’re losing many qualified candidates through recruitment, it may be time to review your strategy. Maybe your process is taking too long or is demanding too much of applicants? Maybe one of your hiring managers needs further training when it comes to interviewing, or maybe the candidate pipeline is disorganised, causing miscommunications?

We recommend evaluating the success of your recruitment strategy regularly. To get some expert advice on creating your best yet, download our free Ultimate Guide to Recruitment.

Onto onboarding!

Assuming that you’ve successfully secured your new employee with your job offer letter, you can at long last move onto onboarding!

Onboarding starts well before an employee’s start date, so it’s time to get moving. You can find a step-by-step guide to an incredible total onboarding experience in our Employee Onboarding and Induction Guide, but for now let’s take a quick look at the steps you can take immediately after your job offer letter is returned.

Before your new employee’s first day

• Prepare your new employee’s work area and office space and equip it with supplies
• Order appropriate access keys/security cards and make sure they work
• Order business cards, if applicable
• Arrange for parking, if required
• Order technology equipment (computer, iPad, phone) and software
• Set up their system in advance and assign them to a printer
• Arrange for access to common drives
• Add their name to relevant email lists
• Collect some company merchandise and put together a welcome pack
• Give them details about any remote working allowances (remote and hybrid employees only)
• Send out any equipment and technology via a courier (remote and hybrid employees only)
• Share the news about the new starter with everyone in the business so everyone’s ready for their introduction. It’s a good idea to share something personal about your new hire such as their love of coffee or their favourite footy team. In this way, other employees have something they can use to break the ice with them when they meet
• Assign a buddy or mentor the new hire can rely on to show them the ropes and answer their questions
• Give the person a quick call to make sure they have everything they need, or if they have any questions about day one

Recruitment, managed.

Armed with our job offer letter template and helpful information about recruitment, we hope that you have everything you need to go out and secure your new team member!

If you’re looking for an easier way to manage your recruitment process, learn more about Employment Hero’s Applicant Tracking System (ATS) feature.

Not only can you post your job ad to the world’s most popular job boards with a single click, you can also easily manage applicants, quickly schedule interviews, have a single place to store candidate information and feedback, and move candidates seamlessly through your recruitment pipeline.

Eager to learn more? Book a demo with one of our business specialists to see the Applicant Tracking System in action.