Does this sound familiar?  You have found a fantastic candidate to fill a position that has been open for what seems like an eternity.  He loves your company and you need him.  The problem is, your budget is maxed out, or you have hit the ceiling authorized by HR, and you know it’s not going to be enough.   What do you do?

Well, a little pre-planning wouldn’t hurt.  Before you get into this situation, find out what other variables you have to work with.  Start with the obvious, and then get creative.  At the top of the list is equity or stock options.  Always start on the low end, even if you full intend to give them more.  If someone isn’t too obligated to supporting a family and mortgage, and if they believe in your company’s potential, equity could be very attractive to them.  If the cash isn’t enough, give them more of the American dream!

If your company is small enough, you can typically be more flexible with title.  Again, look beyond the obvious manager, director level-ups…although they work too.  Look for ways to make the title more attractive from a lateral perspective.  One search I worked on recently was for a VP of Sales Operations.  While there were some operational functions the role required, they were looking for someone that also had some hands-on pure sales background who could be very involved in the deals and strategic planning.  A hybrid role of sorts.  I knew traditional Sales Ops folks were not going to be the right fit, and the people that were the right fit were not going to be interested in the title.  I encouraged the client to rename the role to something more fitting:  VP of Sales Strategy and Operations.  The one word change suddenly made the role much more attractive to the people we needed to talk to.  Try applying the same strategy to a candidate on the fence.

You can also find out what the leeway is for number of days telecommuting, what responsibilities you can add to make the role more interesting, if you can add a few more vacation days each year, etc.

The bottom line is, appeal to a candidate’s interests and concerns beyond cash income.  Find out what makes them tick and figure out how to appeal to their soft concerns vs their more obvious ones.  Food for thought:  for some tech companies, the market is going to get more competitive this year for good candidates.  Start preparing now to overcome the objections that you will run into.

Happy hiring!