The relationship between recruiters and hiring managers has always been subject of ongoing discussions in the HR world. As recruiter and hiring manager share a common goal, to fill position with top talent as quickly and effectively as possible, you would think these two parties should get along. Unfortunately, in practice the situation is often a bit more complex and both parties don’t always see eye-to-eye.
Even though both individuals play a role in the need of filling open positions, most often they have drastically different approaches and motivations when it comes to hiring. Where the recruiter is working hard to find the perfect match that fits all the hiring manager’s wishes, the manager rarely understands the recruiter’s work methods and challenges. The recruiter will never know as much about the position and person the manager is looking for as the hiring manager himself. This often translates into issues when it comes to building a positive relationship. According to the Corporate Leadership Council study, only a third of hiring managers reported they were satisfied with the recruiter’s role in the hiring process. At the same time, managers have their focus on their own responsibilities and projects and often have trouble fitting in recruitment to their heavy workload. It is therefore no surprise that involving hiring managers in the process is one of the biggest challenges recruiters face when trying to recruit talent.
Although this doesn’t apply to everyone, it does illustrate an ongoing business dilemma that can cost precious time, resources and, most importantly – good candidates. To cut a long story short, both recruiter and hiring manager have a great impact on the talent acquisition process and should work as a real team to avoid shooting themselves in the foot. Businesses benefit from better recruiter-hiring manager relationships, it saves time, resources and not to mention a lot of headaches. In many cases, cultivating a successful relationship starts with the understanding of each other’s processes and expectations, building trust and maintaining good communications. Of course this is easier said than done. The good news is that many organizations are implementing new HR technologies that, besides enhancing process efficiency and reliability, also facilitate in creating a genuine collaborative relationship between the recruiter and hiring manager.
Speaking from my own experiences, many employers that implemented video in their recruitment process have indicated that relations between their recruiters and hiring managers significantly improved. While this was not the primary objective, it was a truly positive by-product for integrating video. Video recruitment offers recruiters the opportunity to easily pre-screen candidates and talk to more candidates in less time. By adding personality to the CV, the recruiter is able to evaluate candidates not only based on their hard-skills but also on their soft-skills and cultural match. This increases the chances that the recruiter selects only the best candidates and feels more confident in the candidates he recommends. At the same time, the hiring manager can easily be involved (and participate) in the selection process (regardless his location) since he is able to get a first impression of the candidates in a time-saving, efficient and especially engaging way. As the recruiter is able to deliver better matches, hiring managers develop more trust and confidence that the recruiter selects only the best candidates for an on-site interview. This can save valuable time in making the ultimate hiring decision.
Obviously the relationship between recruiter and manager is more complex and can’t be go from bad to great overnight by adding some technology to the process. Both parties will need to commit to finding a shared way of working and communicating in order to work in harmony with each other. Organizations should just be aware of the benefits, both direct and indirect, that technology has to offer to empower their businesses.
