An offer approval workflow is the sign-off chain a proposed offer passes through before it is put to the candidate. Reviewers confirm the level, the base salary against the published range, any bonus, equity or sign-on element, and whether an exception is being requested. The output is a package the recruiter is authorized to communicate.
The hiring manager proposes, and everyone after that checks something different. A compensation or HR partner tests the package against the published range for the level and against what people already doing the job are paid. Finance looks at total cost wherever equity, sign-on payments or relocation are involved. An executive is normally pulled in only when something falls outside policy. Some organizations add a pay-equity review comparing the proposal against peers in the same role and location. The subject under review is the package, never the headcount, because whether the role should exist was settled when the requisition opened. Confusing the two produces routes where somebody re-litigates the vacancy while a chosen candidate waits, which is one of the most avoidable ways to lose a hire.
Because the candidate is live and rarely exclusive to you. Someone who has finished a full interview process is usually in late stages elsewhere, and the gap between "we would like to make you an offer" and a written package is exactly the window a competing employer closes in. Silence during that window reads as hesitancy, or as a problem with the candidate, and neither is true. Recruiters bridge it with a verbal indication, which works only if the number survives review. If it does not, you have manufactured a retraction. Teams that measure the interval between final interview and offer delivered generally find the delay concentrated in one approver's inbox rather than spread evenly across every step, which makes it fixable without redesigning anything.
By deciding in advance what needs no decision. A package that sits inside the published range for the level, uses standard terms and carries no unusual component can clear with a single approver or none at all, because the judgment was already made when the band was set. Everything outside the band routes to the people who own exceptions. Two things follow. Routine offers move in hours rather than days, and the approvals that remain carry real weight, so approvers read them properly instead of clicking through a queue. Bands need maintenance to keep working this way, since an out-of-date range pushes ordinary offers into the exception path and the shortcut disappears. Configuring the rule set usually belongs in [ATS implementation](/ats-implementation) rather than being bolted on later, because band data has to sit where offers are raised.
Who approved what, when, and on what basis. In practice that means the package as approved, the range it was compared against, the identity and timestamp of every approver, and a written reason for any exception. The value appears later rather than at the time. Pay-equity reviews depend on being able to see why two people at the same level are paid differently. When a manager requests the same exception next quarter, precedent becomes visible instead of remembered. If an offer is revised during negotiation, the trail shows whether the revision was re-approved or simply slipped through. Keeping all of it inside the [applicant tracking system](/ats) alongside the candidate record is far more reliable than a mail thread, which leaves the company whenever its owner does.
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