How to Fully Engage a Hiring Manager in the Recruitment Process at Your Company

It takes a dedicated team to find and hire the ideal applicant. It involves tight communication amongst various members working across departments. As the de facto head of your hiring team, the hiring manager plays a critical role in this process.

Unfortunately, hiring managers frequently struggle to engage in the hiring process properly. This might lead to a lack of team cohesion and missed opportunities to hire brilliant fresh talent. 

According to Gallup’s recent survey , 51% of hiring managers are disengaged, and 14% are actively disengaged. A poor hiring manager can have far-reaching consequences for the performance of the hiring team, company, engagement, and turnover. According to a report, disengaged managers cost the US economy between $319 billion and $398 billion per year. And, at some time in their careers, half of all employees have quit getting away from a poor boss.

In this post, we’ll look at steps you can take to engage hiring managers in the recruiting process more smoothly.But before that, you need to first dive into some reasons which cause the disengagement in the first place.

Why Does a Hiring Manager’s Engagement in the Recruitment Process Seem Broken?

Here are some of the most typical reasons a hiring manager may remain disengaged.

• A hiring manager may have a negative impression of HR. You must make sure they have a different experience with your hiring team.
• They’re too preoccupied. Making the hiring process simple relieves hiring managers of some of their responsibilities.
• They have no idea how the hiring process works, leading to a lack of confidence and low engagement. Always be open and honest about the process, and be eager to assist in bringing your hiring manager up to speed.
• They are unsure of what to request. Again, this is due to a lack of understanding of the process. It’s your job to assist recruiting managers in forming an idea of what they require and how to obtain it.
• They might have doubts about their abilities to interview and screen potential candidates. It’s important to remember that hiring managers aren’t recruiters. As a result, they are unlikely to have the same abilities. Take efforts to address the issues.

Now that we’ve covered some of the most typical reasons for disengagement, let’s look at how you can train hiring managers better so that your hiring teams become more effective and get the best job seekers your way.

4 Quick Steps To Fully Engage a Hiring Manager 

Step #1: Tap Into Hiring Managers’ Pain To Motivate Them And Get Them More Engaged

Hiring managers may lack the experience necessary to correctly choose amongst candidates who are similarly qualified. They may rank each candidate based on the position’s criteria to determine who is the clear best choice.

Organize a session to teach hiring managers how to define and apply criteria effectively. Begin by asking them to design an ideal candidate persona for a role on their team. This will be the standard by which they will judge a five-star candidate.

Not all hiring managers have the best interview skills. So, offer your hiring manager a couple of mock interviews and ask them to break down a candidate’s talents and why they’d be a good fit for the organization.

This will provide hiring managers with a method for establishing and using goal-oriented hiring criteria. 

For example, the recruiting team at Dropbox invites hiring managers to have informal coffee discussions with potential employees. Without the pressure and paperwork of a conventional interview process, hiring managers learn about the candidates’ preferences. These coffee discussions have helped the managers to engage better.

Furthermore, instead of hiring an interviewer on the spot every time, Uber’s head of product collaborated with many recruiters to pre-designate which hiring managers would engage in interviews for each major job category.

Step #2: Help Hiring Manager To Set Realistic Expectations By Educating On The Data

It’s essential to establish how realistic the hiring manager’s goals are to meet your recruitment needs. 

Ask your hiring manager the following questions:

• What is the title of the position?
• What candidate qualifications should the ideal person have?
• How are you planning on targeting passive candidates?
• What are the daily responsibilities?
• What is the minimum requirement for this position?
• What is the team’s organizational structure?
• To whom will the new employee report?
• What is the whole remuneration?

For example, if your company needs a marketing manager with ten years of expertise in the biotech field, your hiring manager is willing to provide 20% less than the market average. In such a scenario, you need to compare salaries and explain that the pay your hiring manager is deciding upon is not practical as candidates with ten years of experience are more likely to have a senior/director rank.

You need to show the hiring managers real-time data or send a list that includes accurate information, regarding

• Industry-standard compensation
• Position titles across the industry
• Time to fill similar positions

To begin with, having this data will provide the hiring manager with the honest feedback/evidence they need to persuade their CEO. 

Secondly, having this discussion before consenting to a search will save you time and money in the long run. It will make selecting the appropriate searches much more accessible.

Step #3: Make It Easy for Managers to Review Candidates by Tapping Talent-Management Technology to Leverage Deep Performance Insights

According to a study , only 7% of prospects receive a call from a recruiter after being rejected, which is concerning. A lot of serious work needs to be done to improve the hiring process. This must begin with greater training for hiring managers.

Helping your hiring managers be well adept with the recent technologies via automation can change the recruitment game altogether.

Your hiring manager may not know where to begin. As they are directly responsible for the recruitment process’s success, it’s obligatory for you first to make reviewing the best candidates easy for them to engage better.

• Ask them a series of questions about the perfect candidate, such as what talents they need, what experience they want, and their degree of education.
• Assist your manager in developing realistic expectations that are appropriate for the work.
• Make sure to add personal attributes to that list so that the chosen applicant has a better chance of fitting in with the team.

The hiring manager should be able to develop a clear job description for the HR staff. The staff will then create a job listing on the employment market, depending on what they’ve determined.

Additionally, most hiring managers already have access to valuable resources in their applicant tracking systems (ATS), but they don’t know how to access them.

A study  shows that 75% of recruiters and hiring managers use the applicant tracking system to ease their hiring process. About 94% of hiring managers feel their applicant tracking system (ATS) has improved their hiring process and helped them to engage better in the hiring process.

Training your hiring managers to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) for talent rediscovery will leverage their engagement in the recruitment process.

With ever-changing recruitment trends , what’s constant is offering a great candidate experience year after year. These can be readily achieved by having your hiring manager switch to automation and become up to date with these ATS that includes an in-built CRM which will help streamline prior resumes in your ATS and shortlist potential applicants who will be appropriate for the roles you now have open.

Step #4: Assist Your Managers In Identifying Your Main Sourcing Channels

Choosing the ideal platforms to create close relationships with potential recruits while engaging hiring managers to discover the methods to locate candidates by considering the following questions should be your next step:

• What sort of employment (part-time, full-time, intern, freelance, contract-to-hire)?
• Will the sources you’ve chosen help you reach your intended audience?
• What other resources (such as an employee referral program, social recruiting, job boards, people in your talent community, passive prospects, and so on) do you have in your toolbox?
• Is your company collaborating with professional, varied, and educational organizations to reach out to a wide range of people with specialized skills?

Hiring managers can create their sourcing strategy  by choosing from various social networking sites like Job board, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

According to a recent LinkedIn survey , roughly 49% of professionals follow organizations in their various niches on social networking platforms to stay updated on their recruiting needs and hiring processes.

Learn More About How to Engage a Hiring Manager Better

Don’t worry if you don’t have much experience developing an effective engagement plan for your hiring managers. Recruiter.com can help you!

Our team of talented HR specialists with extensive experience in all aspects of recruitment would be delighted to assist you with even the most basic queries and, in the long run, to help you in creating an employee-centric, results-driven working environment that’s made up of top candidates.

If you’re interested in enhancing your recruiting process, contact us today to see how we can help you.

Get the top recruiting news and insights delivered to your inbox every week. Sign up for the Recruiter Today newsletter.