Five Ways to Influence Hiring Managers in the Recruitment Process

Recruiters often complain that they struggle to get quality time with hiring managers and learn about their talent-related priorities in a proactive way. This is a legitimate complaint; if you can’t get time with a manager, how can you possibly be a ‘talent advisor’, understand their business and get insights into their future talent needs?

What does 'influencing hiring managers' mean? It’s means having the power to compel a manager to take actions, demonstrate behaviors, share opinions about, and ultimately drive activities that result in finding, screening, winning and keeping the talent the business most needs to be successful.

Rather than inserting themselves in a way that’s obtrusive or unwelcome, there are five ways that recruiters can influence hiring managers effectively. It begins with demonstrating the value they bring to the recruitment process. Over time, this creates a “pull” from the hiring manager for support and advisement, rather than a constant “push” that may seem to go nowhere.

Demonstrates Talent Acquisition and Talent Marketplace Knowledge

It may go without saying, but a recruiter who doesn’t know – or doesn’t demonstrate credibility in – core areas of recruiting will always struggle to get hiring managers’ time and attention. The following actions send strong signals that a recruiter knows what she/he is doing, that they have command of the talent marketplace, and they are well-suited to provide guidance related to winning top talent for the open role in ways like this:

• Conducts an Intake or Planning Meeting in a way that not only gets critical information from the hiring manager about the role – but also presents and discusses relevant information about the talent marketplace and trends relevant to the search. This may look like market data about the availability of talent, data-based recommendations for conducting either a local or national search, insights into appropriate minimum and preferred qualifications for the job, sample candidate profiles to review, data about salary ranges, etc.
• Presents a passive candidate sourcing plan, when the availability of talent in the marketplace demands such an approach. If talent for a particular role is scarce, then a recruiter must demonstrate the thought leadership and ability to research people who have the skills, contact them in a compelling way, pique their interest in learning more about the role and screen them for interest and fit in the company and the job. After all, for such roles, simply posting on job boards will rarely if ever land top talent.
• They screen candidates effectively and determine if they’re interested, qualified for the role and a suitable fit for the organization before sending them along to hiring managers.

Demonstrates Good Judgment

Hiring managers trust recruiters who have proven themselves able to make good decisions in a timely way about talent. They blend analysis, wisdom, experience, and judgment as it relates to the best way to attract and select the right kind of candidates. They are sought out by others for advice and solutions as it relates to sourcing, recruiting and hiring. They typically do things like:

• Build a track record of hiring success – and can talk about it in a data-based way
• Present and discuss options, along with pros and cons, for hiring managers to consider (e.g.: “I can search for candidates with PhDs, 10 years of experience, who only want $60k – but here is what the market data tells us. Here’s another option to consider . . .”)
• Consider outcomes of different decisions and work with the hiring manager to assess risks and rewards.
• Effectively obtain insights about candidates, the business, talent priorities, etc. through communication skills, collaboration and relationship-building – and uses this information to provide advice and direction.

Demonstrates Persistence

Persistent recruiters are typically the most successful and influential. They creatively and efficiently get things done, despite setbacks or obstacles. They embrace and stick to a challenge without getting discouraged or distracted. They display innovative thinking and confidence in resolving persistent problems. Persistent recruiters are the type who:

• Wouldn't consider sending a search to an agency after working it unsuccessfully for a period of time.
• Understand that finding top talent – particularly for roles that demand scarce skills - almost never happens easily. They present a plan, work it, readjust it when needed, and continue to think creatively and present the hiring manager with new and different ideas over time.
• The plan their work, prioritize their time and consider alternative solutions when necessary.

Leverages Resources

Top recruiters marshal the resources they need to get the job done in a proactive way. They are skilled at communicating and negotiating with others to secure the information, time or data needed to meet their hiring challenges and commitments. These recruiters creatively consider ways to engage the hiring managers and others in the research, screening and selection of top talent. Recruiters who successfully leverage their resources will:

• Make use of information, materials, talent, or processes to help them reach desired results.
• They will seek out others who have solved similar problems to gain insights into what’s worked before.
• They will enlist hiring managers in reviewing their personal networks and successfully engage them in reaching out to potential candidates.

Demonstrates Responsiveness

Responsiveness is arguably the most important competency in building a reputation as an influential, credible recruiter. Responsiveness is essential to building trust and collaborative working relationships. Influential recruiters demonstrate a range of responsiveness, including all of the following:

• Rapidly responding to calls, emails and questions.
• Moving with visible urgency to demonstrate a bias for action and the need for speed. They walk quickly in the halls, they respond to problems or questions to show they’re on the case, etc.
• They manage expectations and communicate effectively by providing timelines – which they consistently meet or exceed.
• They follow up, ask questions, request feedback, make additional suggestions in a value added way.

Is it time to learn more about developing your team of Talent Acquisition professionals? Check out our simulation-based Talent Acquisition learning and development exercise, In-Box Dash. This one-of-a-kind training experience not only immerses TA pros in the world of real-life recruiting challenges, but also provides them with rapid feedback and personalized development. There's nothing like it.

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