Managers who ignore job descriptions by constantly redefining the candidate qualifications are a recruiter’s worse nightmare.

Ever work with a hiring manager who changes his mind about what he’s looking for in a candidate two weeks into the recruitment process?

And then again a week later?

And maybe even once more just for good measure?

The whole purpose behind a job description is to drive the recruitment effort by setting expectations for the new employee while laying out in no uncertain terms the key role this position plays and the specific skills and abilities a candidate should possess in order to be able to perform the essential functions of the job.

But you’d be amazed at how many times I’ve heard from HR professionals who have reviewed the job description with a hiring manager only to have him subsequently reject the candidates that were submitted because of some previously undefined element that suddenly becomes important, yet is not listed in the job description.

Or conversely, this same hiring manager suddenly gets a candidate referral from a long-time friend and after an initial interview decides to hire her though she lacks the prerequisite skills.

As a professional recruiter, I have developed over the years a documented process for gathering information from the hiring manager that he didn’t even know he had…akin to turning someone upside down and getting all that loose change to fall out of their pockets, and it works every time.

The key to this process is asking the hiring manager questions that offers her the opportunity to really think about the wants and needs for the position. Asking the right questions gets the hiring manager to delve deep into the true essence of the position. Simply put, asking the right questions gets the hiring manager to look at the position and hiring process differently.

What’s important is coming to some consensus prior to starting the recruitment process. If the job description doesn’t fit the current needs of the hiring manager, department or organization then let’s rewrite it. But by all means, let’s do it before the search begins.

Job descriptions are written for a reason: to clearly define the qualifications necessary to be successful in the position. That’s why it’s so important that recruiter’s have this information accurate at the beginning of the recruitment process.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 at 9:16 am and is filed under Recruiting, Interviewing. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.