Helping Your In-House Recruiters Manage Their 'Clients'
By Gary Kaplan© Human Resources Professional. September/October 1999.
Have you heard or said the following? "Can you believe it? The hiring manager turned down my perfect candidate!"
"The candidate stormed out of his interview and won't return my phone calls."
"After all my hard work, the hiring manager went around me and found someone else!"
If you've encountered too many of these complaints from your in-house recruiting staff, something is amiss and warrants a closer look, especially considering the time, money and effort, not to mention the staff's morale factor, that goes into recruitment efforts.
In organizations that staff through in-house recruiters, the inability to get hiring managers to listen to and act on their recommendations is an often under-addressed issue in human resource departments. Too many rejections or unsuccessful placements are warning signs of deeper issues.
A fresh perspective will help. In-house recruiters need to look upon hiring managers, the people who make the final hiring decision, as their "clients," much as a quality executive search firm does. Viewing them this way prompts the recruiter to implement a different, more sophisticated skill set and process than simply filling job orders.
Addressing Recruiters' Issues
The recruiter's overall goal is to manage clients' expectations and to gain their confidence in his or her ability to produce the right candidates. You can assist recruiters by training them in a series of well-defined steps:
- Define the job. The first step in establishing a trusted relationship begins with a face-to-face meeting between the recruiter and the hiring manager to define the job up front and minimize failure.
Have the recruiter ask the hiring manager specific questions before the candidate hunt begins to gain a sharp picture of what is really sought. Answers to these questions clearly define the job expectations for both.
During this discussion, the recruiter also should gauge the hiring manager's comfort level, openness and candor with the answers. A defensive attitude indicates potential concerns. An open, honest response sets the stage for a positive working relationship.
- Measure against reality. With their last hire several years ago, hiring managers may be laboring under the impression that talent is in oversupply and eager. In their initial and follow-up exchanges, recruiters may bump up against hiring managers' unrealistic expectations vs. the reality of the current employment market.
With full employment at its highest level in 29 years, talent is increasingly difficult to pry loose from current jobs. Good, let alone great, people are hard to come by, and when contacted, hard to convince to entertain, let alone make, the change.
Given this situation, the recruiter's task is to educate the hiring manager and manage his or her expectations.
In view of a limited talent pool and competitive environment, the compensation offered may not be sufficient. The recruiter may need to help the manager structure the compensation package creatively by adding a sign-on bonus, guaranteed annual bonus and/or stock options or other attractive perks in lieu of sabotaging the company's existing compensation structure.
- Recruiter-promoted confidence. The job-definition meeting should establish a good working relationship. A close relationship engenders trust and confidence in the recruiter's skill in producing successful candidates and accepting his recommendations.
Frequent contact with the hiring manager through the search process builds the recruiter's credibility. Checking in with a phone call or informal meeting every week to report progress, followed by a short, comprehensive written activity report every seven days or so keeps the client up to speed and deepens trust.
In addition, frequent contact allows the recruiter to monitor any of the hiring manager's second thoughts, change of mind or heart, hidden agendas and department or position changes that affect the search.
The recruiter's goal is to avoid a moving target (or at least keep current with changing parameters), so the products of the search match the manager's expectations, with no surprises along the way.
For every candidate interviewed, recruiters should contact the hiring manager for feedback. His reaction and comments provide further insights into his hiring characteristics and candidate preferences, and the recruiter can adjust accordingly.
- Manage the candidate. Since this transaction required two agreeable parties, the other half of the recruiter's job is to build a relationship with the candidate as well as the hiring manager.
Recruiters can effectively prequalify a candidate by asking specific behavioral/situational questions.
For example, instead of asking for a record of accomplishments, ask, "What are the most difficult responsibilities of your current position and why?" or "In what type of work environment are you most productive?"
Raising sensitive issues early eliminates surprises and prepares the candidate to face issues he or she may not have considered. With relocation and compensation two hot buttons, a gentle probe reveals the candidate's thinking and avoids unwelcome surprises before the interview process.
In one case, asking a candidate how he felt about relocating to Southern California revealed his spouse's unwillingness to move, a decision-breaker. The recruiter can also probe for wants or needs in compensation levels.
One recruiter discovered a candidate's emphasis on a prospective company's stock participation plan; he was willing to accept $5,000 less in salary in exchange for what he valued more.
Anticipating the candidate's issues sometimes required dealing with counter-offers. Asking how a candidate would handle a counter-offer from his present employer may reveal an insight into his frame of mind.
To prepare for that situation, the recruiter may also want to ask, "Is that a company you would want to continue with if it only recognizes you when you resign?"
- Manage the job offer. The hiring manager, not the human resource department, should extend the job offer.
This sends a statement to the candidate of his importance to the manager and his valuable role in the position, preparing the way for the new hire's integration in the company.
Pleasing difficult clients is no small task. Even with top-notch candidates, the hiring manager may undermine the placement effort unknowingly or on purpose.
If a recruiter has managed the client and candidate relationships properly, there should be no last minute surprises.
Overcoming Resistance
However, the unexpected still occurs. Managers may not be totally forthcoming and ultimately fill the position with a former colleague or a referred candidate whose background falls outside of the parameters of the job description. Unless your HR policy dictates otherwise, there is little that can be done.
In other instances, managers may not be trained in contemporary interviewing techniques or especially skilled at them. They may not recognize a good candidate when they see one.
Their hiring decision may be based on emotion (Do I like this person or the way he or she looks?), rather than an objective evaluation. Certainly, chemistry plays its role in an interview, but the candidate or manager may have other issues at that time that cloud the interaction.
A skilled interviewer recognizes and allows for these possibilities. To remedy this situation, you can institute an interviewing-skills training program for all involved or specific to hiring decision-makers.
By the same token, training, or at least, heightening sensitivity among managers concerning poor candidate treatment can alleviate another sore point among recruiters. Candidates need to feel they have had an attentive interview and a fair measurement for the proposed opportunity.
Equally important, poor treatment causes long-range damage to the company's reputation as a place to work and do business. Every candidate must be treated as a potential customer or client at the very least, for his good or bad word-of-mouth evaluation spreads far beyond his immediate circle.
You never know if that candidate may end up in a powerful position elsewhere or may decline to purchase and recommend the organization's products and services. With a dearth of quality people available, your organization cannot afford discourteous, disrespectful candidate treatment by its representatives.
To avoid that, managers need to be alerted to common courtesy faults, especially in these times when delivering a high-demand candidate to the interview is a Herculean task.
Failing to meet and greet properly; keeping a candidate waiting for 30 to 40 minutes for the interview without an acknowledgement or apology; interruptions; rushed, harried, arrogant and negative attitudes during the interview affect the candidate's predisposition to the company and the job offer. Imagine the candidate's reaction when one hiring manager referred to the company as a sweat shop!
Courteous, respectful and attentive interviews are part of the hiring managers' responsibilities - and good company policy.
Successful HR departments help their in-house recruiters accumulate a winning track record of satisfactory placements with their hiring managers-clients.
The overriding goal is to have the recruiters develop collaborative, team-oriented relationships with their clients, positioning the organization as both an attractive place to interview and to work. A collaborative relationship, rather than an antagonistic one, relies on honesty, candor and trust.
A solid working relationship established at the beginning of the recruitment process and developed over time promotes trust and reliance on the HR department to fill its needs.
First Things First
Recruiters can more fully understand hiring managers' spoken and underlying candidate preferences by asking these questions in initial interviews with them:
- Why is the job open?
- What happened to the previous employee? Was he or she promoted? If the employee left the company, why?
- What specific duties are involved? How does this position relate to the corporate structure?
- What does the hiring manager expect a new-hire to accomplish in this position?
- How will the new-hire be evaluated?
- What core competencies, technical skills and level of experience are required?
- Are any of these requirements flexible, and to what extent?
- What tangibles - entrepreneurial spirit, a can-do attitude, initiative, business manner - is the hiring manager seeking?
- Can the position be filled internally? Has everyone been ruled out? Why or why not?
- Who in the company may be a role model for an ideal candidate?
