This article about improving the recruiter and hiring manager relationship was originally published in April of 2022. All relevant copy and statistics have been updated as of July 2022.
Strong recruiter and hiring manager collaboration is vital for the success of an organization’s talent acquisition process. But why, and more importantly, what can be done to strengthen it?
In case the basics are fuzzy, let’s a quick overview of each:
A hiring manager is the leader hiring for an open position on their own team. It’s not their full-time job to attract top talent; their concern is getting their role filled so the rest of their operation can run smoothly.
On the other hand, a recruiter is someone whose full focus is on attracting top talent for the right roles. A hiring manager’s focus is on the person, evaluating them, and ultimately managing them. The recruiter’s focus is the hiring process itself.
While both roles play an integral part in hiring, their own roles are completely unique. But as you could guess, their collaboration is crucial for the enterprise’s success, the department, and the candidate they’re bringing on. These two roles must work together to build a sourcing strategy and engage the top-level talent needed to keep your business competitive and profitable.
Here are four ways talent acquisition teams and hiring managers can solidify a successful working relationship.
[bctt tweet=”Need to improve quality of hire? Start by improving communication between your recruiters and hiring managers. Get there with these four tips from @MojoHire: ” via=”no”]
1. Meet at the Starting Line
Whether by phone calls, video conferences, or in-person meetings, recruiters and hiring managers should get together at the very beginning of the process to discuss the open role. This discussion should cover expectations regarding timeline, candidate availability, and marketing tactics to ensure there’s no confusion later on. Although it’s tempting to skip out on the initial discussion to save time, it rarely works to assume you’re both on the same page without confirmation.
The recruiter and hiring manager should walk away from this initial meeting with a thorough understanding of the role that needs to be filled, the talent that may be available to fill it, and how the recruiting process should flow. This initial meeting helps instill confidence in the hiring manager that the recruiter will deliver on their commitments to find a high-quality hire within the agreed-upon timeframe. It also helps the recruiter understand the type of candidate that will thrive in the role.
Beyond this initial meeting, communications between the hiring manager and recruiter should be ongoing, with regular updates being provided and realignment if needed. It’s helpful for the TA team to remind hiring managers of how the recruitment process will run as things unfold so that they know what they’re responsible for and how to work with their recruiter effectively.
[bctt tweet=”Give recruiters and hiring managers a communication tune-up with these four tips from @MojoHire: ” via=”no”]
2. Streamline the Interview Process
Hiring managers should feel extremely confident that if a candidate is pushed forward to an interview with them, that the talent acquisition team has verified that they are highly qualified and worth the time and effort to interview. Plus, since the recruiter has reviewed the candidate’s credentials, the hiring manager can focus on learning about the candidate’s experience and personality during the interview.
Each role should also communicate their priorities and main talking points for the interviews as well. When the recruiters and hiring managers fail to align priorities, they risk asking the same questions twice, which can undermine the candidate’s confidence in your organization.
Alternatively, suppose both parties communicate the brand’s strengths in sync with each other, build off previous interviews, and work to respect the interviewee’s time. In that case, it ensures a positive candidate experience and increases brand awareness.
As the hiring process evolves, keep lines of communications open and ensure that TA pros don’t wait until the hiring manager has turned down several candidates before realigning. Once the hiring manager starts to see what is available in the current job market, it’s not uncommon for them to modify their original criteria for the candidates they want. For this reason, it’s crucial for recruiters to regularly and frequently ask hiring managers for feedback on the candidates they’ve interviewed so far.
Related reading: Career pathing is obsolete. Here’s what to do instead
3. Negotiate the Offer Upfront
The unpleasant reality for many recruiters and hiring managers is that companies can experience a lot of turnover in the first couple months of hiring new employees. In a study conducted this year, 30% of employees have reported leaving a job within the first 90 days of employment. With this in mind, it’s vital for talent acquisition teams and hiring managers to provide a smooth and well-organized offer and onboarding experience.
In particular, it’s essential for hiring managers to know what is expected of them during the offer process and not be surprised by the candidate’s anticipations during this phase. When creating the offer, both the TA executive and hiring manager should be on the same page regarding the offer package that the candidate is expecting. Core components of the offer should start at the very beginning of the process.
Obviously, a disconnect in the offer details is a disruption. Not only will it create a lot of unnecessary back peddling and side-stepping, but it’s also likely to slow the process down and may cause the candidate to lose patience and bow out. At the outset, the TA team and hiring manager should agree on how flexible the company can be regarding compensation and benefits packages.
Both recruiter and hiring manager should agree on a solid cut-off point as well, knowing this could ultimately cost them the hire. Nailing these details down on the front end will prevent the need to get approvals during later stages and avoid costly delays.
Related reading: Organizational agility: Is your TA team helping or hurting?
4. Implement Beneficial Technology
Can you guess the most significant barrier to sustaining open communications between recruiters and hiring managers? HR technology’s siloed and notoriously clunky nature.
The user interface (UI) on these systems is not the most user-friendly and is made worse when the numerous systems don’t tie back to one another. This forces communication between email or other channels that make it difficult to track and organize information.
The lack of technology presents added frustration and friction to the recruiter/hiring manager relationship and leaves room for detrimental errors when each communication channel only provides half of the information. Your HRM isn’t a dud; it’s how they all work. None of them can communicate within every program seamlessly.
Your talent acquisition teams need a tool that makes their jobs easier instead of acting as another hurdle to clear. MojoHire provides that transparency.
MojoHire sits on top of the HR tech stack and provides a single, unified interface across all data repositories and platforms. No matter where a candidate’s data is stored (internal HR systems, ATS, external marketplaces, etc.), candidates and communication can be quickly discovered/tracked inside MojoHire, uniting the central point of full-picture data.
Everything from high-level information to minor details about candidates is easy to see. All parties involved in the recruiting and onboarding process can access a single interface to share feedback, view résumés, and more, making collaboration between recruiter and hiring manager as seamless and productive as ever.
Storing every candidate detail in one place, rather than being buried across disparate inboxes, allows for tracked communication, quicker decision making, and a smoother hiring process.
MojoHire has a +60 net promoter score from recruiter and hiring manager perspectives and a proven track record of accelerating productivity with hiring teams, improving time to fill, and quality of hire.
As a bonus, this collaboration can help inform MojoHire’s AI engine so that the software can “learn” company preferences and take them into account for future hires, leading to ever-increasing productivity.
Related reading: Why you need AI-powered talent acquisition
Promote True Collaboration
Great relationships are built on excellent communication, so when communication is cumbersome, the relationship between the recruiter and hiring manager is strained. MojoHire’s simple-to-use, AI-enabled cloud solution sits on top of your HR tech stack to offer a unified, ergonomic collaboration platform that facilitates strong relationships between talent acquisition teams and hiring managers. See what MojoHire can do for your teams today.
