8 Questions Recruiters Need to Ask Hiring Managers

The following is adapted from Recruiting Sucks… But it Doesn’t Have To: Breaking Through the Myths That Got Us Here.

The first step in a recruiting process is to understand what a hiring manager needs. As a recruiter, you must perform what is called an “intake session” to get this information. But what questions should you ask during this session?

When I hold workshops for recruiters, I illustrate the common approach to an intake session by putting a complete job description on a screen behind me that describes the role. I’ll ask the audience of 300 people, “What do you think you need to know about this job?”

I’ll get the typical questions like these: How many years of experience do they need? What’s the geographic area? How many people are on this person’s team? Do they need a degree? These are all important questions. Yet, they are all practical and skills-based. Some aren’t as relevant as we imagine. For example, did you know that when it comes to degrees and results, the correlation is 1 percent or less?

The New Intake Session

The old intake session is all about the job description. I prefer not to start with a job description. Typically when a recruiter receives one, they ask the hiring manager to tell them about the job. Many hiring managers proceed to refer the recruiter right back to the job description they already have. The recruiter just goes through the old job description to make sure it’s still accurate. In the end, all you have is a confirmation of what’s already in the job description. What if the assumptions made on that job description are wrong? Would that give you good candidates? You’re just going down a rabbit hole. 

Without a job description, I can ask any question I want. If there is already information laid out for the hiring manager, they are going to default to it because that’s what they’ve been trained to do. They’re not bad hiring managers. They’re just following directions or following the training they received during previous intake sessions. Without a job description, the line of questioning is going to be very different. It allows us to dig deeper than skills alone.

What to Ask

Before I get into any details about the role or position, I start by delving into the hiring manager’s company and division. The current state of the company may dictate the behaviors needed in a candidate—it’s the recruiter’s role to figure that out.

First, I ask these three questions:

• Where are you today?
• Where do you want to go?
• What’s standing in your way of getting there?

Then I dig deeper into where the company really stands at present. I figure out which of the following stages it’s at:

• Is it a “startup,” i.e., a new company that doesn’t have a lot of established rules, processes, or generally much money for big systems, etc.?
• Is it a “scale-up,” i.e., a company that has had some success and growth, and maybe just raised funding from private equity or an institutional investor? Scale-up companies generally need to begin creating policies and procedures to satisfy investors and drive real revenue growth?
• Is it a “grown-up,” i.e., a company that’s more mature, that has already established rules and guidelines, and is generally more focused on efficiency than real growth?
• Is it a “blow-up,” i.e., a company that isn’t passing maturity and needs to reinvent itself, a company that’s not quite a startup anymore but is in a situation where they need to turn things around?
• Is it a “roll-up,” i.e., a company that’s focusing on getting bought or merging with another company, usually through a cash-out situation?

All these companies can have the same job description (say, for a controller). But the point is that from a behavioral perspective, the best candidate fit is different for each one. Think about it this way:

• Startup: the best candidate here is likely someone who is used to working very fast, with no rules, and with very little in terms of resources—the kind of person who is comfortable wearing multiple hats just to get things done.
• Scale-up: the best candidate here is likely someone who can bring in processes and understands the needs of investors in terms of reporting, etc.
• Grown-up: the best candidate here is likely someone who is good at finding and solving inefficiencies in large organizations that are often bureaucratic and stuck in their ways.
• Blow-up: the best candidate here is likely someone who’s more of a hired gun. They don’t mind blowing up everything that exists in order to start from scratch and get it right. After all, there’s a big difference between finishing your basement as part of a new construction and remodeling it merely to refinish it—namely, lots more work!
• Roll-up: the best candidate here is likely someone whose focus is short term and generally about the money or another incentive to drive a transaction. Generally, it’s about lowering costs to the bare minimum in order to increase profitability on paper and get more for the business.

As you can see, the profile for each of these candidates is very different. It makes sense to start there. But most recruiters don’t. 

The good news is, their blind spots can be your advantage. By asking the above questions and determining where a company currently stands, you can find the best candidate for the job.

For more advice on effective recruiting, you can find Recruiting Sucks on Amazon.

Steve Lowisz is a recruiting industry veteran and talent optimization guru with more than two decades of experience helping companies find and unlock the performance of their teams. He is an expert on talent acquisition, talent assessment, talent engagement, diversity and inclusion, and business performance, which has allowed him to serve hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals across the globe. As the CEO and founder of the Qualigence Group of Companies, Steve regularly contributes to industry events and publications and has been featured in Fortune magazine, CNN Money, and the Detroit Free Press, as well as on Bloomberg Radio.