Why The Hiring Manager Experience is equally important as Candidate Experience.

Hiring managers are the key internal stake holders for any Talent Acquisition function in a company. Their overall engagement and interaction in the whole process is detrimental on the eventual hire and quality of hiring.

Maybe it’s high time that we recruiters start viewing them as “Customers”. It’s not hard to transition into that thinking mode, because if you think hard then they are and will be our customers always.

Let’s not forget that in the bargain to improve Candidate Experience, if we ignore the HM experience part, we end up with a really bad Candidate Experience score.

On that note, what can we do to create a better hiring manager experience? Is it just filling the position within the stipulated time lines? I don’t think so. Ask any Hiring Manager and they will say, well that’s the job of the recruiter, isn’t it? That’s what you guys are getting paid for. Where is the exceptional hiring manager experience in the whole process?

Well let’s try to answer them below.

1. Detailed/Robust Kick-off – Many a times this part of the process is ignored or given the least importance by recruiters. One tends to get ahead of the curve with the JD in place and starts sourcing. Having a robust kick-off is an absolute must as it not only lets the recruiters understand the job/candidate specific requirements better, it also allows the Hiring Managers to understand the whole sourcing to on-boarding process that their recruiter will be working upon. It also gives an opportunity to set the expectations of the interviewer in reference to timelines and when can they expect the first set of CV’s. It’s not cool to over promise and under deliver. Doing a vice versa though keeps the Hiring Managers happy and makes the recruiters look a lot better.
2. Regular Check-ins – The first point will only add value if you follow this up with regular weekly check-ins with the Hiring Manager maybe for 15 to 30 mins. Ideally doing this for the first 4 weeks makes a lot of sense, as by then hopefully you would have identified your top lot of candidates. Great platform to discuss the nuances, challenges or the kind of talent pool that you seeing in the market. It also allows the business to understand behind the scene work that recruiter does to get to those 5 rock star candidates. No harm in gaining their empathy.
3. Build Trust and Transparency – If you follow a process then automatically what you build with the Hiring Managers is a relationship of trust and transparency. If I want to hire a team member on my team I need to trust my Recruiter. Regular interactions, sharing of the data and weekly progress reports they all help a long way in building that trust.
4. Coach Them – You will be surprised when I say this - that most of the Hiring Manager’s are not comfortable when it comes to hiring folks on their teams. It’s a not a regular part of their KPI’s and that’s where a seasoned recruiter can help immensely. Sharing all the recruiting guides, set of behavioral questions, competencies assignments makes them more confident and engaged to hire.
5. Over Communicate – Sounds creepy, but I learnt this from my ex-manager, who was a great believer of the same. At times we think we doing a great job in sourcing, screening and presenting the best CV’s to the Hiring Managers. Where we miss the mark is letting them know by over communication about our failures as well. Like I had 3 great calls today, however only one will be able to move to the next round as 2 off them were over my budgeted OTE. The hiring managers know about the recruiter’s success when they get to see the 5 top CV’s eventually but what they never come to know is the number of candidates that a recruiter speaks to get to those top 5.

Above are a few pointers to build trust, transparency and help increase the hiring manager experience. It’s tough to recruit in today’s dynamic and very candidate centric market, so having a good relationship with hiring managers helps a lot in hiring fast, quality people. Also having joint accountability in the whole process helps candidates experience a smooth and efficient recruiting process which ultimately helps in increasing the candidate experience score for companies.

Have you been practicing these or any other additional things to help increase the hiring manager experience? Feel free to share and let me and others also learn along the way.