We recently posted the first of three parts in our series about Managing Your Hiring Managers. (Part One, Part Two) We discussed how to understand what your hiring manager’s want through Voice of the Customer (VOC) and how to build credibility with your hiring managers.

Our final post of the series will focus on how to effectively manage the hiring manager relationship.

Effectively Managing the Hiring Manager relationship

So, you’ve spent a great deal of time assessing your hiring manager’s needs through Voice of the Customer, and you’ve worked hard to establish credibility.  Now, if you don’t effectively manage the relationship with them then all of your efforts will be wasted!!

One important step in the management of any consultative relationship is the ability to establish a strong foundation to the partnership (yes, you’re the recruiting consultant to your hiring manager!).  This starts when consultants engage with clients in the initial intake session.

Intake Session = Foundation:  If you have a good intake session then you have a strong foundation to build a relationship! A good intake session is not only about uncovering the basic wants and needs of your hiring manager but it will allow you to explore the position in great detail as well, including:

• Why is the position open?
• What are the top 3-5 key objectives for someone in this position?
• What are the challenges a person will face in this position?
• How is performance measured?
• What is your hiring managers style/personality/culutre
• Sourcing Strategy questions
  • Who are some of your top performers that I could network with?
  • Who are some of the top performers externally that you’re aware of?
  • Are you aware of any companies that might be struggling that I could tap into?
• What are the selling points of the position?
• What “knock out” questions do you suggest I use?
• What is our Service Level Agreement?

Establishing a Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a key step in effectively managing the hiring manager relationship.  It sets expectations in advance, for both you and your hiring manager about who is going to do what during the hiring process and how long it’s going to take.

For example, a well crafted SLA will outline how quickly you will be expected to provide qualified and interested candidates as well as how quickly your hiring manager will respond once you have submitted an initial slate of candidates.

If you’d like to see an example of our intake and SLA documents please contact me.

Finally, best in class organizations use detailed analytics, trend tracking, and ongoing voice of the customer sessions/surveys to consistently check on hiring manager satisfaction and correct areas of concern proactively.

If you’re effectively managing the relationship, you’re not only talking with your hiring managers often about the day to day aspects of candidate flow, but you’re also meeting with them at least quarterly to look at your high level results as a team to mitigate any areas of risk.

The Managing Your Hiring Managers Series was Posted with Permission from the Author. Original posts can be seen here

Related posts:

1. Managing Your Hiring Managers, Part I
2. Managing Your Hiring Managers, Part II
3. Managing candidates’ salary expectations
4. 3 Tools to Improve the Quality of Hires
5. How to Hire… It’s Like Gambling In Las Vegas!