Are Hiring Managers Giving You a Headache?
One thing is certain for all types of recruiters; the hiring managers that you are recruiting for are the pillar standing between you and your success. Whether you are a corporate recruiter, an agency recruiter , or an executive headhunter, the hiring manager’s behavior directly impacts your recruiting efforts. If they don’t return phone calls or give timely feedback it will be virtually impossible for you to be successful.
Here are some tips to ensuring a successful relationship for you and your hiring managers. If you have already gotten off track you can use many of these tips to start anew:
1. Understand the priority of the position the hiring manager has you recruiting for. Ask the hiring manager to describe what impact having this position open is having on his or her team. Ask them to extrapolate for you what impact continuing to have this position open is going to have on their team. This is called “drawing out the pain.” The bigger the hiring manager perceives their pain, the more engaged they will be in “curing” their pain.
2. What “pending events” are coming up that make it imperative they fill this job? Is there a particular busy season where they need to ensure that their team is fully trained? Work backwards to get a “no-later-than” date, this is the date that someone must be on board in order to be effective in whatever pending event the hiring manager has.
3. Are they in danger of losing any other team members? Anyone going on maternity leave, applying for a transfer, on a performance plan? What would happen if the hiring manager had another open position to fill? Understanding the danger their department is in if they had one more person leave may help get them on track with getting this position filled.
4. Identify specific dates and times during the week that the manager would have to review resumes and interview candidates. Identify if they want you to send them resumes as they come in, or would they prefer you send one email once you have 5-7 excellent resumes to review? Remember that everyone is inundated with email these days so how can you help them better manage their inbox?
5. Give the hiring manager a realistic picture of how many resumes they will likely need to review, how many phone screens, and how many in person interviews they will likely need to conduct prior to getting the right candidate. Just getting them prepared to put in the effort will get them started off with the right expectations.
6. Ask the hiring manager if you can “pre-reserve” time on their calendar to phone screen or interview candidates. If you don’t have a candidate for them to interview during this pre-reserved time, use the time on the calendar to review the candidates that you have submitted and get their feedback. Be quick about this and give the hiring manager time back in their day. They will appreciate you being cognizant of their time, and likely give you the same respect back with your time.
7. Lastly, when you take on a new search, write a confirmation email to the hiring manager confirming everything you learned about the priority, pending event, the impact of having this open position or another one. In this confirmation email, recap the commitment they made regarding timeframes.
Great communication and clear expectations will always be the path to a successful relationship with your hiring managers.