Building relationships between recruiters and hiring managers

Recruitment teams and hiring managers working towards the same goal often have different approaches, and that isn’t always conducive to delivering the best candidate experience. Being on the same page and working together more effectively will have a huge impact on improving the candidate experience. 

The role of the hiring manager and their levels of responsibility within the recruitment process can vary considerably. In many cases the hiring manager raises a request to recruit, the in house team take over to source candidates and provide a long list for the hiring manager to review prior to interviews being scheduled.

Hiring managers play a pivotal role in candidate sourcing in many sectors, most notably in: Health & Social Care, Hospitality, Transportation & Logistics, Aerospace & Automotive, Government & NfP, Education & Professional Services. Source: 2018 Candidate Attraction Survey

Typically, hiring managers are integral to identifying staffing requirements, raising a job requisition, getting the best candidates placed and all the stages in between.

Working together to keep your hiring process on track

How can the relationship between recruiters and hiring managers work in harmony to keep recruitment on track and on time – every time?

1. Have a scalable, standard procedure and workflow for all to follow. Be aware of the recruitment process and SLA’s so everyone knows what good looks like.
2. Clearly defined roles. Ensure you educate all stakeholders on the part they play and the importance of their role to the business.
3. Give hiring managers the tools to do the best job they can do. Remove the barriers and assist hiring managers to understand the process, systems and expectations.
4. Share access to your talent pools based on required permissions that could help to improve your time to hire pro-actively.
5. Minimise effort and maximise decision making. Hiring managers that have mobile responsive access to their current tasks, vacancies, offers, placements, interview slots and availability can be proactive and keep track of key stage communications centrally – anywhere, any time.
6. ATS & recruitment software should be implemented with recruitment teams and hiring managers in mind. For example, can hiring managers create vacancy requests from an approved library so jobs can be raised efficiently for approval? Can recruiters manage the initial sifting and screening to quickly and consistently identify potential talent? Then, hiring managers can view details of the shortlisted candidates and schedule their availability for interviewing?

Joint working will enable both recruiters and hiring managers to become more efficient in placing the best candidates. It will also help to manage the relationship between candidates, departments and hiring managers along every step of the process - keeping your recruitment on track, ensuring process compliance and delivering a high degree of measurability.

Read how David Lloyd Clubs have complete control over their hiring to give candidates the best possible experience.