• 
• Training
• Consulting
• Resources
• Events
• About Us
• Store

• » Articles
• › The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent
• › Newsletters

The Science of Recruiting - Part 6: Influencing Hiring Managers - Taking the Assignment

By Lou Adler, February 6, 2004

Influencing hiring managers is as important as influencing candidates. If hiring managers won't take your advice you shouldn't be a recruiter. The interviewing and assessment process is not a perfect science. So recruiters need to guide managers along, insuring that the best available candidate gets hired. You can't afford to spend your time showing hiring managers an endless stream of candidates until the perfect one magically appears. Or, until they're so worn down they can't tell the difference.

Read more articles by this author.

Related Topics:

The Science of Recruiting, Taking the Assignment, Working With Hiring Managers

Related Articles:

The Science of Recruiting - Part 10: Closing and Negotiating Offers - Advanced

The Science of Recruiting - Part 9: Negotiating and Closing Offers - The Set Up

The Science of Recruiting - Part 8: Influencing Hiring Managers - The Hiring Decision

However, for recruiters the most important part of the recruiting and hiring process is not influencing the final selection process, it's taking the initial job assignment. For a recruiter, how well this is done will make all of the difference in the world.

When taking on a new assignment, recruiters typically ask hiring managers what they're looking for. The answer is the traditional job descriptions over-emphasizing skills, experiences, industry background, academics, and personal attributes. Asking this question is the best way NOT to increase your influence with hiring managers. The best way to increase your influence, is to ask the hiring managers to describe what the person taking the job needs to DO to be successful, not what the person needs to HAVE. Force the hiring manager to describe the real job, rather than describing the person taking the job. Your ability to shift the discussion to deliverables and outcomes is the key to become a great recruiter and gaining instant credibility with the hiring manager. This is the fundamental difference between performance-based hiring and traditional hiring techniques. If you want to be a better recruiter you start by taking better job descriptions.

Every job has 6-8 things a person needs to do to be considered successful. These can be called performance objectives, deliverables, process steps, or accomplishments. What you call them is unimportant, what is important, though, is that you don't ever conduct another search without knowing what they are. The recruiter's first job is to pull this information from the hiring manager before you start another assignment. Here are some examples of these performance objectives:

For a call center rep it might be to call 50 people per day and convince 10 of them to order another batch of something or other.

An accountant might need to close the books faster.

An engineer might need to complete the design analysis in 50% of the normal time.

For a camp counselor at the YMCA it might be to prepare one to two hours every night to make sure the next day's eight hours worth of activities are fun for their kids.

For a Director of IT, it might be to get the new SAP module installed in a crash program to meet a year- end deadline.

For a general manager it might be to turn-around a division in 18 months that has been losing market share for the past five years.

A real job has 6-8 deliverables like this that define the major objectives required for job success. You'll need to engage with the hiring manager to figure out what they are. Start by asking the hiring manager to describe the two or three major challenges in the job. Then find out the 2-3 key sub-steps needed to achieve each of these major objectives. Typical sub-steps include finding out the problems, creating the plan, determining resource needs, and strengthening the team. When defining the real job ask about the major challenges and problems that need to be overcome. Ask where improvements and changes are necessary. Also go through the job description and convert each requirement into a deliverable by asking "what does the person need to accomplish with these five years of experience or degree in marketing?" Done properly, you'll develop 10-15 performance objectives this way. This is too many to work with. You're next objective is to get the hiring manager and, if possible, everyone on the hiring team to narrow this list down to the 6-8 most important performance objectives.

To narrow the list down, select the performance objectives that are the critical deal-breakers or the most difficult to accomplish. Then put these in priority order. By getting everyone on the interviewing team involved at this stage you'll get more agreement about candidates once interviewing begins. So this is a critical step in both improving the efficiency of the hiring process and exerting your influence early. They'll be lots of discussion and plenty of disagreement in figuring out the top performance objectives, but this is lot better than waiting until after you're seeing candidates, or until after someone starts. Most managers never clarify expectations this way. This is the leading cause of hiring mistakes. Understanding real job needs is the first step in improving a company's hiring batting average. Finding candidates who are motivated and competent to do this work is the second step.

Recruiters can't be passive in this process. Too many recruiters assume that hiring managers know exactly what they need and then defer to their judgment. Don't. Make them prove to you they know what they're doing. Few really do, and even those that do need your help. If you want to increase your influence with hiring managers you need to take a proactive role at each phase in the hiring process. Defining the real job is the most important step you can take. First, it will directly impact the quality of the interviewing and assessment process and the person ultimately hired. More importantly, it also allows the individual recruiter to put his or her stamp on how hiring needs to be done. You will not be given the influence or the respect you want from your hiring manager clients. You must earn it. You earn it by fist knowing the job. Get your hiring managers to clarify expectations. Demand this before your work their assignments. They'll appreciate your efforts, persistence, and confidence. Then go out and find some top candidates. This is a heck of lot easier once you know the real job.