Sending offers

Once you mark an applicant Hired, you can start an offer for them, optionally seeded from one of your offer templates. An offer moves through a fixed set of states: draft, sent, signed and approved, plus two ways out early: declined and withdrawn.

Draft and send an offer

While an offer is in Draft, edit the contract body, fill in any custom fields and set the start date. Before it lets you send, the module checks that a start date is set, the contract isn't empty and every merge token in the body has a value. Sending emails the candidate a link to review and sign. That link only carries the offer's ID, never any secret, so it's safe to forward.

How the candidate signs

The candidate opens the offer link and signs in with a one-time code sent to their email, the same as your careers site sign-in. Before they can sign, they have to accept an electronic records and signatures disclosure, which explains that they're consenting to sign electronically and that they can request a paper copy instead if they'd rather. Once they accept and sign, the module generates a signed PDF with a certificate page recording the signing details, timestamps and IP address, and emails them a copy.

This is Mercleo's own e-signature flow, not a third-party signing product. It captures consent and a signed, timestamped record, but it isn't a substitute for legal advice on your offer letter's contents.

Approving is the hire, not the signature

A signed offer sits in Signed until you approve it. Approving is what actually hires the candidate into your workspace: it creates their employee record, assigns them to their team and queues their onboarding. Until you approve, nothing downstream has happened yet, even though the candidate has already signed.

If something needs to change after signing, send the offer back to Draft with a note explaining why instead of approving it. That clears the frozen signatures so you can revise the contract and send it again.

Tracking offers

Your offers list shows every offer with its current status, so you can see at a glance which ones are still waiting on a signature and which are waiting on your approval.