10 Hiring Manager Roadblocks and How to Overcome Them

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Speakers

Dina RulliManager, Talent Acquisition

at Glassdoordina.rulli@glassdoor.com

Caitlin WilterdinkLead Recruiter Greenhouse

Caitlin.wilterdink@greenhouse.io

Agenda:

- Defining the Problem- Common Behavior- Identify Goal- 10 Hiring Manager Roadblocks- Solutions- Questions

The most important person in your recruiting process isn’t the recruiter.

It isn’t your candidate either.

The Problem

The most important person in your process is your hiring manager.

HMs hold the power to prioritize hiring, define the person you will hire, and ultimately make the decision to hire the person you have worked so hard to find.

The Problem

Common Behavior

- Gives me impossible roles to fill

- Ignores my emails

- Doesn’t give me feedback

- Doesn’t know how to interview

- Doesn’t tell their team what s/he

is looking for

- Expects me to do all of the work

- Blames recruiting when their

team misses project deadlines

My Hiring Manager

The Problem

- Doesn’t communicate with me

- Doesn’t provide enough

information

- Doesn’t find me the right people

- Takes too long to find candidates

- Expects me to do too many

interviews

- And, I mean really, is recruiting

so hard?

My Recruiter

The Problem

Misunderstanding, mistrust, and miscommunication aren’t the best ways to build a partnership.

And you create alignment by building a partnership with your Hiring Managers.

You build an effective partnership when you trust, communicate often, and make sure you understand each other. 

The Problem

So, how do we fix this?

Here are the 10 common hiring manager roadblocks and how to fix them…

Problem 1:

Hiring Managers don’t prioritize hiring

“I need to cancel my interviews this week in order to meet a deadline.”

“Why can’t you write the job description? Isn’t that part of your job?”

“I’ll review those resumes next week.”

Tough Love: Don’t open the role

Tough Love: set SLAs and, if they

aren’t met, no more candidates

Be a “squeaky wheel”

Set a regular communication

cadence

Provide information: show how

important hiring is

Always be prepared

Solutions

Problem 2:

Hiring Managers don’t know what they are looking for

“I need a Senior MySQL Engineer who can code MySQL, Java and also knows Javascript.”

“I want to hire a VP, Sales but can only afford to pay this person $100k.”

“We only hire the best people.”

Define what “the best people”

actually means

Official kick-off meetings

Describe the knowledge, skills,

abilities, not a person

Ask “why”?

Define the Day 1 Problem

Provide market information

Reevaluate often

Solutions

Problem 3:

Hiring Managers don’t know how to prepare and coach their interview team

“I don’t know how to evaluate this candidate because I don’t know anything about the role.”

“Why do I need to provide feedback?We’re not hiring the guy anyway.”

“Wait…I have an interview today?”

Show your HM that ineffective

interviews waste the interviewers’

time. Time = $

Train the interviewers yourself

Remind the interviewers often

Run post-mortems and feedback

round tables

Value and acknowledge your

interviewers’ opinions

Solutions

Problem 4:

Hiring Managers don’t know how to budget time for recruiting

“We’re going to miss our sprint goals this month if we take this much time to interview”

“My engineers are complaining that they need to stay late to finish their feedback forms.”

Automate the interview process

Train the recruiting team to

assess the technical stuff

Build interview time into

project deadlines

Budget time for feedback

Solutions

Problem 5:

Hiring Managers rely solely on recruiting to find candidates

“I only want to interview people who are late stage.”

“Why do I need to ask my team for referrals? Isn’t that your job?”

“If I was supposed to hire people, you wouldn’t be here.”

Tell your hiring managers

what you can’t (or won’t) do

Push back on them, recruiting

is a reciprocal process

Get HM help with prospecting

Get HM help with referrals

Tough love, when needed

Solutions

Problem 6:

Hiring Managers don’t provide timely feedback to recruiting

“I don’t have time to write feedback.”

“I don’t have time to meet about them, just bring in the next one.”

“It’s too cumbersome to leave feedback.”

Make feedback easy to give –

so it is not a chore and task that

hiring managers dread

Set up a weekly debrief meeting

Go straight to the top

Solutions

Problem 7:

Hiring Managers become unresponsive

“My actual job is more important than dealing with this. Isn’t this your job?”

No reply, no reply, no reply…

“I’m super busy and don’t have the time.”

Be persistent – get an answer from whoever will respond to you

Get their attention!

Use your Allies – if they won’t respond to you, will they respond to your Manager?

Solutions

Problem 8:

Hiring Managers panic if they don’t get a ton of applications in the first few days a job is open

“What’s wrong with the post? I think I need you to change the description.”

“Where are we promoting this job?I need this to be front and center.”

“There aren’t enough people applying to my post.”

Assess advertising channels

Assess the competition

Assess the title + description

Expected timelines for sourcing

Explain the best candidates

are not waiting for you to post

a job – they must be sought

after + woo’ed

Solutions

Problem 9:

Hiring Managers want a purple squirrel

“I need the best candidates in the door.”

“Why do I need to ask my team for referrals? Isn’t that your job?”

“If I was supposed to hire people, you wouldn’t be here.”

Set up time to source together

Review top performers

Start interviewing

Get to the bottom of why they need this purple squirrel

Stack rank skills

Solutions

Problem 10:

Hiring Managers don’t see the value in weekly update meetings/calls

“I can’t have a standing meeting to deal with this.”

“I’m too busy.”

Can the search be delegated?

Join Hiring Manager’s weekly

team meeting

Alternative ways to communicate

Solutions

The #1 most important thing you can do…

Get your executive team on board.

Your CEO must communicate the importance of hiring to every hiring manager as frequently as possible.

Every management meeting should discuss hiring, 1:1’s should discuss hiring, all hands meetings should discuss hiring, company newsletters should discuss hiring…

Building alignment means creating trust, communicating often and educating each other.

Communicate

Proactively provide information

Meetings!

Run post-mortems

Identify bottle-necks and decide how to solve together

Trust

Be honest if you will miss a deadline

Explain your expectations

Hold each other accountable

Understand/Educate

Participate in the team onboarding process

Go to standups

Train your interviewers

Opensource your recruiting meetings

Questions?