Question: My department has a number of courses we need covered by adjuncts in the next academic year. We were given permission to hire one (and only one) salaried adjunct and to cover the rest of the courses with per-course adjuncts. Salaried adjuncts receive benefits and are better paid than per-course adjuncts.

We received excellent candidates for the salaried position, only one of whom we can hire. After we close the search, (how) can I approach rejected candidates about teaching individual courses at the lower rate? Some career adjuncts have told me it would be offensive to offer a lower-paying and lower-status position to someone who applied for a better one, and I do not wish to offend anyone. 

While the salaried position was publicly advertised, our institution does not advertise single courses. Furthermore, most of the candidates who applied for our salaried position were invited to by committee members or by our contacts, not because they were looking at ads.

**How can I get the best outcome for our students and for teachers who would be willing to teach individual courses?** I will continue to ask the administration for permission to hire a second salaried adjunct but do not expect to receive it. There is not much time to wait before starting our per-course search, as the current academic year is nearing its end (and our administration moves very slowly).

**Update**

Because each of the top two candidates seemed too good to reject, we proposed a second salaried position, which we made by cobbling together the remaining courses and one from a related program. To our surprise, the administration reversed its earlier decision to let us hire only one salaried adjunct, and we were able to make two salaried offers. While my question is moot, I will leave it up for future search chairs.

Answer: 
**Ask them.** What other option do you have? Not asking them I guess, but then you're making the decision for them. Personally, I can't imagine being offended if you explain it the way you did above. That said, I do agree that most candidates will react the same way other answerers have ("no freaking way!") -- all the more so because they were personally recruited for a permanent, salaried position. 

**You should have a firm offer for a specific course** rather than just "inviting them to apply" for the lesser position. If possible, personalized mails or phone calls tend to be better received than form letters. 

**Edit**: a lot of this discussion has focused on whether offering the lesser position is offensive. I think it's not, but beyond that, the question was:

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> How do I get the best outcome **for our students and for teachers who would be willing to teach individual courses.**
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> 
> 

Even if applicants are offended by being offered the lesser position, that has zero bearing on the students or teachers that OP is asking about. Frankly, it doesn't really matter whether the rejected applicants are offended -- this will have no real consequences. On the other hand, if even one of these applicants accepts the per-course position, that could have huge consequences for both the students and teachers in question.
This sort of thing happened to me on several occasions. I applied for tenure-track jobs, specifically asking not to be considered for temporary jobs, and was offered a postdoc on more than one occasion. One time I even interviewed for a tenure-track job before getting offered a postdoc instead. This one was the only one that offended me since I actually flew out of town for the interview and the bait-and-switch was irritating.

The case at hand is somewhat different since it's a full-time adjunct vs a one-course adjunct at a lower wage, but I think there is some commonality. How offended they would be would likely depend on how demeaning you are about it. On one extreme, if the candidate interviewed for the job, was rejected, and then was offered a worse position, then there's a good chance the candidate would be offended. I've known one person who accepted such a job anyhow and he was miserable the whole time, thinking he deserved better. He didn't get along with the other faculty as a result.

On the other extreme, if the candidate simply was never contacted about the adjunct job, and then got a mass emailing from some university account alerting the candidate to the job opening, it's less offensive and you might get more interest. It just means the candidate was put on a list of people who might be interested. There's still some rejection involved but it seems to me it's less personal and less likely to be taken the wrong way.