You have this great candidate and everyone is excited about bringing him or her on-board – you make the offer and then the candidate doesn’t accept….What happened?
Finding the right candidate is only half the battle, the real battle is closing a strong, passive candidate. The best have multiple options and because they are passive it will take more effort to get them to decide to join. Over the years, I have seen many that got lost in the offer stages. Losing someone at this stage is painful and costly. There are often no back-ups which means going back to the drawing board. In hindsight, many declines could have been avoided by taking simple steps.
via How to avoid rejection from a strong candidate | LinkedIn.