Part one: How to win over hiring managers and get buy-in for a new approach

“I KNOW I need a better way of doing things but winning over hiring managers is a NIGHTMARE. I don’t even know where to start.” Lucky for you, we do.?

It’s a popular refrain from TA leaders who feel like they’re banging their heads against a wall trying to get their hiring managers to embrace something different.?

Maybe they’re reluctant to let go of the CV because they’ve used it for years and they’ve never had any problems before.?

Maybe they’re mistrustful of psychometric assessments because they’ve taken one before and the results were NOT how they see themselves AT ALL.

Or maybe they get that improving diversity is important… but how can someone possibly succeed without needing years of training if they don’t have industry experience?

All of these are problems that disruptive TA leaders have figured out a way to overcome.?

The secret??

Give yourself a break. Start with a pilot, not a pronouncement.?

First things first. You don’t need to win every hiring manager over from day one. This is going to be a change management process as much as it is a chance to change your process.?

And just like in any change process, some groups are going to be easier to win over than others. Start here.?

There will be a group of people who are motivated by experimenting with something new ––?think of these people as your Early Adopters.?

How do you spot them? Maybe they’re well known for being innovators in the business and trialling new approaches, maybe they’re highly engaged in your leadership development programmes, or maybe they’re an active part of your Employee Resource Groups.?

Anecdotal evidence says that maybe about 10% of your people will sit in this bucket.?

Then there will be a group of people –– most likely the majority ––?who will be open to trying something new as long as they’ve got the data and evidence to prove that it works. AND the reassurance that the new process is well established and set up for them to easily follow.?

These people are your Win-ables. The 80% of your people who don't want to go first and risk trying something that might fail, but who will happily go second when they have the data to know that a new process will work and is well defined for them to follow easily (perhaps with only a little bit of persuading).?

And of course, trailing up the rear will be your Sceptics. Maybe 10% of your organisation who you’ll never manage to convince, but who will either grumble along but follow suit because everyone else is… or who aren’t really a great fit for your organisational values or direction of travel anyway.??

Whether you’re a believer in the Innovation Adoption Cycle or Kotter’s Change Model, none of this is new advice.?

So if you’re struggling to win over hiring managers on mass, don’t sweat it. Just start small, experiment so you can prove the impact, and then you can go bigger.?

3 tips for a successful pilot?

1. Enlist the help of two types of Early Adopters to run your pilot.?

There are two types of stakeholders you’re going to need in your innovation squad for your pilot — an executive stakeholder and one or more hiring managers (depending on how big you want your pilot to be).?

Getting buy-in from an exec will not only make a post-pilot rollout easier, but it will also make it easier to get hiring managers involved who may want a chance to get recognition from and build relationships with execs.?

Look for execs who have expressed a passion for supporting DEI or are perhaps actively involved in your ERGs, and lean into the business case for what you’re trying to do –– overcoming skills shortages, reducing spiralling time and cost to hire, and ensuring you’re hiring talent who can grow with the organisation… As well as improving the diversity of your talent pool and equity of your process.?

2. Make it easy to compare before and after?

Before you start your pilot, you’ll want to make sure that you’ve got everything you need in place to be able to get the data you want to show the impact of the pilot.?

For this, we’d recommend two approaches:?

1. If you’ve recently hired for the role you’ve chosen to pilot with, make sure you’ve got the data you need to compare key metrics using the old method and the new method?
2. If you’re hiring for more than one candidate in the same role, you could run your old method and new method side by side to compare the results

You’re aiming to be able to create a slide that might look a bit like this??

3. Don’t go it alone –– enlist your peers as allies

You might think it will take months to figure out how to find execs or hiring managers who are up for trialling this process. But it doesn’t have to be that hard.

Enlist the help of your peers –– your colleagues across L&D or DEI could be your secret weapon.?

They’ll be able to tell you which folks are most engaged in leadership development training or most active in your ERGs.?

They might be able to put out a call for action in the current manager training they’re running or the monthly DEI bulletin.

Either way, lean on your peers to help you get started ––?you don’t have to go it alone.

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For more tips, tricks, and templates (from decks to workshop agendas) download the pragmatists’ playbook for skills-based hiring now. If hiring manager engagement is an area you’re struggling with, you might want to check it out.

Next week we’ll be back with part two… How to win over sceptics even when you’ve got the data. Let us know if you have any requests or common objections you’d like us to cover by hitting reply or sharing your thoughts in the comments.??

Until next week.?

3 nuggets of wisdom to take into next week ??

?? In this insightful article ‘The state of AI in early 2024: Gen AI adoption spikes and starts to generate value’, McKinsey and Company dive into how GenAI adoption is accelerating and how those leading the way are already reporting measurable benefits.

?? New research from Visier, reveals that 86% of UK people managers believe AI tools can improve their role effectiveness, including managers who also expressed an overarching desire to make better, data-informed people decisions with 94% of UK respondents.

?? In this article from the ISE, Robert Newry discusses the uncomfortable truth about skills-based hiring, and how there is no universal agreement on what a ‘skill’ is or how to measure one.

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