Working with Recruiters (Hiring Manager version)

Hiring Managers, this post is for you.

As your recruiter, my job is to help you hire your perfect candidate.  My job is to understand your group’s weaknesses, faults, and areas that you need to improve upon.  My job is to help you fill the gaps and inconsistencies.  My job is to help you.  I have said it a couple of times in previous posts, “help me, help you”.  We work as a partnership.  We need to be friends and each others’ most critical colleague.  

In my career as a Corporate Recruiter, I have come across different Hiring Manager types:

1. The “Helper”.  In my opinion, this is the best type of Hiring Manager to work with.  This is the one who wants to help the Recruiter do their job.  Responding to emails, answering calls, providing feedback, being readily available for interviews… all in a timely manner.
2. The “Do It For Me”.  This is the Hiring Manager who thinks that the perfect hire comes without work.  That they will just appear.  Typical behavior of this Hiring Manager is a “do what you want with the candidate” attitude.  Everything is done … albeit, slowly, and at their availability. 
3. The “Ghost”.  This Hiring Manager is the hardest to work with.  They are the ones who never respond to emails, calls, text messages.  They don’t provide feedback on candidate resumes, interviews, or questions about their open positions.  They are the ones who get angry at you for not filling their position three weeks ago, when you otherwise hadn’t heard a peep from them.  

Each profile has their pros/cons, as with everything in life.  But as YOUR Recruiter, here are some suggestions on how to work with the ones who are trying to hire for you:

1. Be responsive.  All the time, on time.  We work hard for you.  We cold call, research (some call it “career stalk”!) candidates, extensively screen candidates for tough information (ie: salary and compensation structure, reasons for leaving, what they hate about their current position).  We spend a LOT of time trying to find the best candidate for you.  Please respond timely to emails/phone calls.  Your company’s Candidate Experience relies on it also.  
2. Provide feedback.  Did I send you a candidate profile that wasn’t a good fit?  Tell me why.  Was it his personality?  Was he missing a programming language?  Did he not show up to the interview?  Wrong background?  Too tenured, too junior?  The more feedback we get from you, the more refined our search becomes for your perfect hire.
3. Accept interviews.  We understand you are busy doing your “real” job… the one your title suggests.  But, to build out your team, you will need to accept interviews at odd hours (sometimes after 5pm).  If you don’t make time to interview these candidates, how can we get to the point of extending an offer?  Bottlenecks are not good.
4. Be open minded.  No candidate (and I repeat … no candidate) that is 100% what you are looking for.  Be open, and willing, to think outside the box.  You never know who may surprise you, and with what. 
   

As always… chin up, head down!  Work hard, stay humble.