Does Your Hiring Manager Keep Requesting More Resumes? [Here’s a Strategy to Deal With It]

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Every single day in the world of recruitment is a whirlwind of challenges. Let’s discuss one of these challenges we’ve all been in more times than we care to admit. Picture this: You’re recruiting for an amazing company, and there’s this hiring manager, who, no matter how many resumes you show them, keeps asking for more. Sounds familiar? Well, let’s unpack this scenario further.

The Scenario

So, you’ve done your homework; you’ve searched high and low to build a diverse candidate pool for an open position. You’re excited about the potential these individuals bring, and you present these top-notch candidates to your hiring manager. But then, guess what? You get the response you’ve heard so many times before:?

These candidates seem decent, but can I see more? I’m not completely convinced these are the best folks out there. Where are you sourcing?

Turning Doubts into Trust

Now, I know what you’re thinking. It feels like a blow to your professional ego, right? But let’s flip the narrative for a moment. This isn’t about doubting your recruitment prowess; it’s more about trust, or the lack thereof, between you and your hiring manager. And trust is something that’s earned over time, especially in workplace partnerships.?

The hiring manager’s relentless requests for more resumes might be their way of dealing with a nagging fear—the fear of missing out on top candidates who could be accidentally overlooked. The manager’s question seems to be: “Are the candidate profiles I’m seeing truly the best we could find?” And there, folks, is our golden opportunity to start building a solid foundation of trust.

But how do we go about doing that?

It’s All About Transparency!

Indeed, the key lies in transparency! Your first course of action involves one pivotal event you should never skip—the recruitment planning meeting (aka kickoff meeting, launch meeting, etc.). This seemingly routine affair has the potential to sow the seeds of trust between you and your hiring manager. Here’s what you can do to make the most out of this trust-building opportunity:

1. Share Your Sourcing Strategy: Begin by presenting your tailor-made sourcing strategy for the role at hand. But don’t stop at just presenting it; explain it. Lay bare the mechanics of your strategy and delve into the reasoning behind your choices. To illustrate your point, bring along a few resumes you’ve sourced. Pick a couple you believe are stellar and some that are merely good. This exercise will not only establish alignment in your perceptions of a competitive candidate, but also reaffirm your grasp of the role and the hiring manager’s qualifications.
2. Declare Your Commitment: Sometimes, the most impactful statements are those expressed explicitly. So, go ahead and verbalize your commitment to ensuring the candidate pool is diverse and competitive. Your hiring manager needs to know that you treat the task of filling the position with the right person as seriously as they do. Remember, trust often sprouts from a place of mutual understanding and shared goals.

Navigating the ‘Full Candidate Pool’ Request

Suppose the hiring manager wishes to see the full candidate pool. Don’t fret! Take it as another opportunity to deepen the trust.

1. Embrace the Request: Offer to sift through the candidate pool together. You can turn it into an interactive session where you examine the candidates that you’ve already sorted into ‘unqualified’, ‘good’, and ‘great’ categories.
2. Assert Your Role as a Trusted Partner: While accommodating your hiring manager’s request, gently remind them of your primary objective—to serve as a trusted partner in the recruitment process. Assure them that your role is to lighten their load so they can concentrate on other high-priority managerial responsibilities. After all, hiring is only one facet of their multidimensional role, and your aim is to make this facet as smooth and efficient as possible.

Trust-Building in Recruitment

Remember, building trust in the recruiting industry isn’t a one-time sprint; it’s more like a marathon. It requires patience, understanding, and a great deal of empathy. But when you cross that finish line and hear the phrase “More resumes, please!” transformed into “I trust your judgment,” you’ll know that every stride was worth it. Remember that as you navigate through these trust-building waters, it’s essential you keep growing, learning, and most importantly, trusting. In the end, when the echoes of “We’ve found the perfect candidate” reverberate in the corridors of your organization, you’ll realize that the journey of nurturing trust, just like running a marathon, is truly about the stamina to stay the course, the resilience to bounce back from setbacks, and the joy of reaching the destination, all the while becoming a better version of yourself.

I’d love to hear from you—how have you handled situations like these in your recruiting journey? What steps have you taken to build trust with hiring managers? Join me in the comments.

Cheers and happy recruiting!