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The Science of Recruiting - Part 7: Influencing Hiring Managers: How You Present Candidates Matters

By Lou Adler, February 13, 2004

Recruiters must be able to influence hiring managers at every step in the hiring process. It starts when the job description is put together, it continues with the presentation of candidates, and ends with leading the candidate selection process. In the previous segment of this series the concept of taking performance-based job descriptions was presented. These differ from traditional job descriptions in that they describe what the person taking the job must do, or achieve, to be considered a successful hire. This allows for more accurate assessments and the ability to create a superior job match, a core principle involved in hiring top talent. In this edition of the Science of Recruiting, techniques will be described on how to use the candidate presentation to describe this critical job match. This is a big step in a recruiter's evolution in becoming a true partner with their hiring manager clients. It also sets the stage for leading the debriefing session, the subject of the next article in this series.

Read more articles by this author.

Related Topics:

The Science of Recruiting, 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

Creating the Job Match

The presentation of your candidates to your hiring manager clients is a very important part of the recruiting process. You can't afford to do searches over again. That's why you must make sure that everyone on the interviewing teams agrees to the performance profile and that they conduct a thorough interview. If the presentation you make is formal, accurate, and professional you'll minimize the number of candidates the team will need to see. This way the best person gets the job, not the person who makes the best presentation. Here are the four things you need to do to demonstrate to the hiring manager and the interviewing team that the person you're presenting is a great fit for the job.

Great resume - make sure the resume is professional with no errors, inconsistencies, or gaps. Cover all of the key issues with your client beforehand and highlight these. Instruct the candidate to redo the resume to incorporate any of the changes you suggest. The resume is an important document. It's important that recruiters insure this is as good as possible. If you're just moving paper about, you're really just administrating a recruiting process, not impacting it.

Formal assessment - even if you just conduct a phone screen, you should document your results. As a minimum conduct a short of work history and obtain a quick summary of the candidate's most significant accomplishments. Take good notes. These should describe the actual results achieved, examples to prove key traits, and an assessment of critical job related factors. It's best to summarize your evaluation of critical traits (e.g., motivation, ability, team skills, cultural fit, trend of growth) using a formal assessment template (go to the Articles & Resources tab at www.adlerconcepts.com to download a copy of our evaluation form you can use).

Your notes - type up your notes into two paragraphs clearly defending why you consider the person a strong potential candidate. The best way to do this is by providing detailed examples of accomplishments. For example, "Julie has exceptional financial reporting and accounting process skills. While she was at AZ Corp she handled all of the quarterly and annual reporting for this $200mm NASDAQ traded company. She also automated the accounting process to reduce the processing of the report from 35 days after the close, down to 20 days. For this she received a special $10 thousand bonus from the CFO."

Summary of the candidate's two best job-related accomplishments - ask the candidate to summarize his or her two most relevant accomplishments into a one page document (two paragraphs for each accomplishment). Send this along with the resume, the 10-factor assessment template, and your notes to the hiring manager. Ask the hiring manager to review the two accomplishments first. This way during the interview the discussion will involve real candidate accomplishments.

When you submit these four documents together as part of your formal presentation package, you'll be immediately branded as a professional. If you decide it takes too much work, then you're missing a major point. Reducing sendouts for each assignment by 50-100% will give you all the time you need to put the package together. Once you get the process down it will only take you 30 minutes for each candidate. So the one to hours you invest in this process will save you 8-12 hours trying to find more candidates. With the 10 plus hours you'll save you'll be able to find better candidates for each assignment or work on more assignments. In the process you'll earn the reputation you deserve for a job well done.

The presentation package provides compelling evidence of a strong job match. By clearly demonstrating that the candidate is both competent and motivated to do the work required (as defined in the performance profile) it's difficult for a hiring manager or anyone on the interviewing team to dismiss a candidate for superficial reasons. The evaluation form along with the recruiter's notes demonstrates that the recruiter has conducted an in-depth interview. Most managers assume that recruiters are just pre-screening resumes. A thorough evaluation with notes challenges the other interviewers to disprove what the recruiter has done. This requires more in-depth analysis. The candidate's two-written accomplishments coupled with the recruiter's reminder to review these first, requires the hiring manager to assess accomplishments rather than first impressions early in the interview. By providing evidence of real ability before the candidate is seen changes the fundamental purpose of the hiring manager interview. No longer is it to determine if the candidate is a possibility, but rather if the candidate is one of the finalists.

While there are other things a recruiter can do to increase his or her influence with the hiring manager, insuring that the quality of the presentation material provided is first rate is one of the most important. This demonstrates the breadth and depth of the recruiter's skills and effectiveness in finding and assessing top candidates. Then once you present a top person it's important to be as tenacious as possible in getting the person hired. This is the only way you'll prevent hiring managers from asking, "Do you have any more candidates?" when the ones they've already met are more than qualified for the job at hand. You shouldn't be doing searches over again because someone on the interviewing team is weak at interviewing. It's the recruiter's job to coach and influence hiring managers and everyone else on the interviewing team through this critical phase. Your clients and your candidates will both thank you. You'll deserve it.