How To Improve The Relationships Between Hiring Managers, Recruiters & Candidates?
Mustafa R. Ali
Global Talent Acquisition Leader | Strategic HR Innovator | Driving Growth through Diversity & Inclusion | USAID Proposal & Project Expert | Multilingual HRM & International Affairs Strategist | AIRS? Certified | Arabic
Develop collaborative relationships that impact business outcomes.
When it comes to recruitment, the relationship with a candidate is often put above all others. But without a positive relationship between hiring managers and recruiters, the candidate is at a real risk of disappearing into a black hole or enduring a poor candidate experience.
In brief, recruitment is about personal relationships. On the one hand, this “relationship” is between recruiter and candidate. Equally so, however, it’s about how the hiring manager and recruiter listen, learn from and help lead one other. As recruiters and hiring managers, the decisions we make not only matter to the same state of your business but the careers and personal lives of many people.
Some ideas to boost the relationships
kick-off call or in-person conversation where the hiring manager (HM) and the recruiter can get on the same page
During the meeting, the HM and the recruiter can list candidate qualifications, outline team responsibilities, and review past successful candidates for similar roles. After determining your search criteria, map out an interview plan together (interview stages, particular areas of focus, and follow-up), along with a sourcing strategy – Where should the search be focused? What companies have the kind of candidates we’re looking for? What job boards specifically target those roles?
Be humble and straightforward, and precise and concise. Please don’t throw the list of questions on the hiring manager’s plate; this technique is ancient and not related to our fast-paced environment. All people are busy, and they have so many issues to deal with. Ask your intake questions through the conversation; questions like; What are you looking for? Key personal. Would you like to work hand in hand to draft ads and job descriptions? So forth. As recruiters, it’s our responsibility to ask questions and be proactive throughout the recruitment process – communicating things such as candidate concerns, available talent, and market intel. For hiring managers, it’s integral they keep recruiters entirely abreast of expectations, changes to hiring demands and role needs, and what makes the company unique.?
Relationships are a two-way street and require a lot of collaboration and responsibility. Teamwork Makes the Dream Work. If hiring managers and recruiters can start looking at one another as a team instead of as an inconvenience, they can achieve greatness. Together, you can improve submission quality, placement times, and candidate experience – which means you’ll both be a lot happier with your work.
Just as in any relationship, love between recruiters and HMs relies on communication. Make it your mission to become a proactive communicator.
It can be just a brief email or quick note at critical milestones, e.g., invite to an intake session after x hours of requisition, email with a screening summary of proposed candidates, follow-up call after interviews, or updates on candidate offer status.
Leading an efficient and productive meeting with the hiring manager to figure out what they want when recruiting for a role is one of the most critical steps in the recruitment process. To create the most optimal recruiting environment, it is essential that the hiring manager and recruiter talk about open job requisitions, what’s working and what’s not working, challenges the recruiter faces, expectations the hiring manager has, and a whole host of other things that will essentially make both their jobs easier.?
Communicating with candidates should feel comfortable and convenient for them. I use various types of social media platforms to share with the candidates, like, for instance, LinkedIn, Email, WhatsApp, SMS, and even Facebook, for some occasions. Recruiting teams and hiring managers should be resources and open ears to their candidates since one of the top skills for effective communication is listening. So, I always say effective and respectful communication is the critical factor for success, leading to positive and fruitful relationships.
A good recruiter can occasionally pull the perfect candidate out of a hat, but we’re not magicians.?
HMS should prioritize skills and qualifications and shouldn’t set unrealistic standards for potential candidates. I can confidently say nobody is a true expert; we always have room to learn. A manager is always new to hiring or a recruiter supporting a role that’s never come across their desk. Mutual support is vital, and this extends to setting the right expectations.
The old relationship adage still applies here – trust is everything. As a recruiter, be honest with your HM in terms of what you are capable of.?
For example, if you don’t feel you have the technical knowledge required to interview ahead programmer adequately, let your HM know from the beginning – they can then be present during the interview to probe for the necessary information, or provide the technical training so you or another team member can conduct the interview properly. Honesty continues to be crucial throughout the process, especially when it’s time to provide feedback. HMS should keep in mind that honest feedback on candidates will give the recruiters the information they need to be more successful in the future.
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As a recruiter, you know that there’s a big problem with trust when you have to convince a candidate to apply for a position or come in for an interview. Establishing trust with a candidate who is unfamiliar with your business can be challenging. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to proactively improve your brand reputation and create a better candidate experience that builds trust over time. For me, I always make it personal. Personalization is a massive trend in recruitment, and for a good reason. A personalized message when reaching out to candidates tends to result in far higher open and click rates. This makes an applicant feel like a company truly has an interest in them and their skills, which will instantly build trust and increase the chances they will pursue the opportunity.
Your hiring process should run like a well-oiled machine.
Begin every search by defining key knock-out style application questions that will help identify top potentials more easily. Make sure both your recruiters and hiring managers are adhering to the same standardized interview process. The more consistent you can be when moving candidates through the interview process, the more accurate you will be when making a final hiring decision.
One way to define “rapport” is a mutual understanding, a bond with empathy, a close relationship. The recruiter-hiring manager relationship is symbiotic; without one, there’s no other.?
Unfortunately, recruiters and hiring managers too often feel like they’re working against each other. This needs to stop! This relationship is a partnership, and both sides need to approach with “learning” in mind. We have a common goal: hire the best person/people for the company while providing an exceptional candidate experience.?
It’s not enough for recruiters to be masters of their field anymore — they also need to understand the specific functions they’re recruiting for. Otherwise, they can expect frustration and resentment from hiring managers.
Recruiters should come into this as a partnership with managers, really sit down and listen and understand their business challenges overall, not just in the context of this specific hire.
You may have heard the phrase “no news is good news,” but that doesn’t ring true for hiring managers who don’t receive regular updates from recruiters.?
If [hiring managers] don’t see it happening, they tend to default thinking nothing is happening, so do your best to avoid that perception. Since when I started working with Tetra Tech, I use follow-up and daily weekly reports with the hiring managers, so I forgot to send the message to the hiring manager; he told me Mustafa No News is Good News.?
We get it — it’s frustrating when hiring managers get in the way of you being able to do your job as well as you’d like. But try not to get too frustrated with them: odds are, they’re dealing with plenty of issues already. I can share with you that some hiring managers are so involved in my work and they want to do the recruitment process or the strategy based on their point of view, as all we know we do have our procedures and method for the overall recruitment. However, sometimes I adjust some techniques or styles to suit the hiring manager’s managing style, and when I do that, it’s not a violation of our recruitment policies at all, but sometimes we have to be flexible with the hiring managers to avoid frustration and setbacks during the hiring process.?
Freedom reflects much trust from the business as a whole. Most large companies take a more conservative, controlled approach. “Many times, as companies try and scale hiring, what they do is take power away from the recruiter and the hiring manager. As a recruiter, you may not be able to banish hiring committees or completely reshape their company’s hiring processes, but you can extend more trust and ownership to your hiring manager. By giving them more power and freedom, you’re also giving them more responsibility and reasons to work closely with you.
Empathy can be defined as an understanding of people’s feelings and experiences. In a diverse and globalized world, empathy can be difficult. But the good news is that empathy can be developed and improved with practice. Coming to empathize with your candidates–and your clients–means understanding who they are as people and what matters to them in their employment.
People are looking for jobs for many reasons, ranging from redundancy in their last roles to hopes for career progression, even things like illness or conflict. Hiring managers and executives are also under the pump to employ lasting employees while meeting budgets and business objectives. Coming to understand how these people feel will give you an edge as a recruiter. In my MBA program, I conducted a study in Pittsburgh in 2017 about applying empathy in the work environment and hiring process; 90% of employees will stay with their company longer if that company empathizes with their needs. Also, 80% of employees would be willing to work longer hours, and over 60% would be willing to work for less money. No doubt empathy is a huge part of recruitment and HR. Using empathy in your recruitment strategy helps you bridge the gap between candidates and clients, fitting better candidates who will stay in their roles longer.
I engage with the job seekers, especially when I interview them to find out their thoughts, emotions, goals, and motivations. In particular, you’ll find out what they want from the job they’re going for and what they need from an employer. During this interviewing process, you’ll also learn to communicate with these candidates better, how to speak their language and how to attract them.
Field Office Manager at DAI - Agriculture and Land Governance
3 年This is very useful and important Guide to all recruiters/hiring managers.