Nowadays you can easily access any “how to” in recruitment:
- how to create more advanced strings – we’ve got you covered!
- new scraping tools – easy!
- how to automate your outreach – and the vendors will be after you.
Still, there is one crucial touch point with your hiring manager that will define your success or failure. It can be called in many different ways: intake meetings, strategic sessions, etc. But one thing that holds true is that this is the cornerstone of your recruitment project. Your action plan will be grounded in the insights you manage to unveil during the encounter with the hiring manager.
Indeed, it’s a proactive discovery process that sets you up for success.
First and foremost, hiring managers are Humans. Often time their hands are full, their schedules are overbooked, and hiring may not be their fav on their to-do lists. And that’s fine if you take the role of an actual talent partner. Moreover, their level of readiness to work with the recruiter may differ and what’s even worse, they could have past negative experiences not being fully supported by their TAs.
I’d suggest having a pivot in your intake and instead of jumping the gun and going straight to the requirements or discussing a hypothetical candidate, ask questions about the business (“Why”), team (“Where”), and actual work (“What”)
Why? (Need assessment & overall expectations)
Some of the questions may be:
- Why do you need this person on a team?
- If it is a new role, what is the current business/operational need for this resource?
- What is the impact this individual will have on overall business performance?
- What is the piece of work that the individual will own?
Once you have an overall understanding of the actual need (pain point), link it with the expectations.
- What will be your expectations of a successful individual in 3 months down the road, 6 months, etc (it depends on the operational cycle of the team. If there’s a set onboarding process, that’s fantastic!)
Where? (Team)
And it’s not about the physical location, but where the individual will be working: team and working relationship (reporting structure, direct reports, key stakeholders and collaborators. In other words, who they are going to interact with on a daily basis?)
- What does the team look like?
- Is it an individual contributor / technical lead? If the individual is a people manager, who will be their direct reports?
What? (Projects)
- What is in the team’s current pipeline (recently finished project, backlog, future projects)?
Briefing on the projects will give a better understanding of the complexity of the environment, and cross-check the actual requirements while providing some great talking points with the prospects.
- Based on the current stance of projects, what will this individual learn? As a result, you’ll understand what areas of growth will be and what would motivate a candidate to join the team.
By the way, a framework based on what the person will Own, Teach, Learn, and Improve is an excellent way to structure job descriptions. It was ideated by Nate Smith, CEO @Lever. To learn more, check out A Glimpse at the Future of Recruiting podcast.
Last, but not least, make sure to twine in the recruitment basics around your conversation: salary, location, work arrangement (hybrid/remote) and interview process.
Happy Recruiting!
