Bridge Insights

Between the Lines of the Job Description: Are Your Recruiter and Hiring Manager on the Same Page?

Mar 20, 2020

As a manager, it is your responsibility to build, lead and develop a successful team that will meet or exceed company growth initiatives. The risk of not being able to deliver on company growth initiatives, having a declining work culture, or having a team that underperforms is detrimental to your credibility as a successful leader.

When it is time to staff your department, vacant positions need to be filled quickly, and with qualified candidates. To begin the hiring process, you pass along an updated job description to your company’s recruiter thinking you will start to see qualified applicants delivered to you in no time –after all, you literally handed them exactly the types of candidates your department needs.

And then, you wait…..

  • …..
  • Tick….
  • …..
  • Tick….
  • …..
  •  Tick…..

 

Nothing. Sure, you’ve seen candidates, but none of them are viable. Is that just the nature of today’s employment market, or are larger forces at play? What is going on? Here are a few reasons why this may be happening, and here’s how you can solve it:

A job description can give guidance on what is needed to perform a job successfully, but it can’t give details on the qualities your team’s hiring manager needs to see in his/her team members.

Examine the Job Description

Just because the recruiter has your job description doesn’t mean they know what is truly needed to successfully fill your department’s vacancy. Yes, job descriptions provide a summary of a job’s responsibilities and give guidance on the required skillset and education level needed to perform this role successfully. But a job description won’t give details on the items your team’s hiring manager needs to see in his/her team members.

Even though a job description provides insight into the skills and experiences needed to perform the duties of a role successfully, it typically omits valuable information that your recruiter needs to be successful. Such as:

 

  • The skills on the job description are “required” versus “requested”
  • The type of personality that will fit best in the department.
  • The hiring manager’s management style.
  • If the position has recently changed, ensuring the current responsibilities are outlined in the job description.
  • The ideal candidate’s background– specific industry knowledge, past job experience, etc.
  • The measurements/expectations of success for this role – goals, metrics to meet, etc.
  • Information on the department’s training structure.
  • The deal-breakers for the position – shift hours, travel requirements, overqualified candidates, etc.

Keep Communication Open

Whether the recruiter managing the job posting is an internal HR team member or an external recruiter, he/she should communicate with the hiring manager before going live with the position. By ensuring he/she understands how the responsibilities of the position have evolved over time along with the wants and needs of the hiring manager, the recruiter can quickly identify applicants who will bring the most value to your business –as opposed to the applicants who simply check all the boxes on a job description.

To create synergy between your hiring manager and recruiter:

 

  • As a hiring manager, make time to download with the recruiter to answer questions
  • Provide and commit to days or windows of time to interview, and stick to a hiring schedule
  • Commit to giving feedback on resumes and hold follow up conversations after interviews -this helps your recruiter identify the best candidates for your team
  • Be flexible on interview schedules -working candidates may need to schedule around work hours
  • Provide timely feedback to the recruiter and make offers in a timely manner –good candidates don’t stay around for long!

Conclusion

If your recruiter or HR team is solely utilizing a job description to find talented candidates, you as the hiring manager may be disappointed in the results of the recruiting process.

Not only will you feel your valuable time has been wasted reviewing unqualified resumes, but your recruiter may also become frustrated that the seat is still unfilled, and, further still, applicants will become frustrated in your company’s delayed hiring timeline.

Start a conversation with your recruiter and share with them what you need to see in your next candidate; be receptive to the items they need from you to be successful. By investing in the relationship between your hiring manager and recruiter, and keeping the lines of communication open, you’ll have a better candidate pool to choose from, and be able to make the best hire for your team!