Sourcing Candidates Is a Team Sport
Hiring managers know, more than anybody else, the nuances of a given position and the qualities of the person who would best fill it. Furthermore, hiring managers are the ones who candidates really want to meet – making them the most qualified to source and engage candidates.
There’s no substitute for a hiring manager’s role-related expertise and unique positioning, but they need recruiters to coach them through the process. Here are three ways hiring managers and recruiters can work together to improve the recruitment process.
1. Identify the Most Qualified Candidates
One of the biggest sources of tension in the hiring process is identifying talent. Hiring managers get frustrated when they feel that recruiters aren’t send them qualified candidates, and recruiters feel that hiring managers don’t properly communicate their expectations.
Rather than pointing fingers, recruiters and hiring managers can plan sourcing sessions to identify qualified candidates together. Recruiters can show hiring managers where and how they would search for candidates, and hiring managers can chime in with their own suggestions. This will not only provide recruiters with useful feedback on each candidate, but it will also help hiring managers learn the process and fine-tune their search requirements. This sets the stage for communication, so hiring managers and recruiters can stay in lockstep as they continue sourcing candidates on their own.
2. Capture Your Candidate’s Interest
The first communication a candidate has with a company is usually an exploratory call from the recruiter to assess the candidate’s qualifications. This places the company’s needs first and ensures that the hiring manager only invests time in speaking with qualified candidates – but, at the same time, this approach to communication often feels impersonal and administrative from the candidate’s perspective.
Prospective candidates may not necessarily be looking for new roles, and recruiters often need to give them the hard sell in order to get them on board.
A phone call from the hiring manager allows for more in-depth conversation about the opportunity to take place. In this 
Recruiters should coach hiring managers on screening best practices to make sure they are able to uncover the best talent while providing great candidate experiences. Hiring managers may not know the best questions to ask during phone screens, for example, and seasoned recruiters can be an invaluable resource in making sure the screening process runs smoothly.
3. Build Strong Candidate Relationships
Top-tier candidates may have other opportunities available to them, or they may not be ready to make a move just yet. Hiring managers that are able to build strong candidate relationships through meaningful conversations will have the best chance at winning these candidates for their teams.
Recruiters can coach hiring managers to help them effectively nurture candidates – and communication is the name of that game. Candidates want substantive engagements with their potential managers in order to determine opportunity fit. Hiring managers should learn their candidates’ motivations early on and focus on how the opportunity fits a given candidate’s needs.
If the timing isn’t right, the hiring manager should stay up to date on changes in the candidate’s career and keep them in the loop about company news and job openings. Personalized attention will keep your candidates engaged and, over time, it will convince the candidate that your company is where they want to work.
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Sourcing candidates is a team sport. Recruiters are experts in the process, but hiring managers have deep domain knowledge about the position and its ideal candidate. When recruiters and hiring managers work together to identify, engage, and nurture candidates, they can develop a recruitment process that will help them win top-tier talent for their teams.