UNRESPONSIVE HIRING MANAGERS
Does this sound familiar? You get a requisition from a hiring manager for a position that he “needs filled right away”. So you put in long hours recruiting, you implore your outside recruiters to hurry on this one, and you do everything that you can to find qualified candidates. Finally, you get three top-notch, qualified candidates and present them to the hiring manager. Not only do you email them, but you also call her to make sure she received them. Then you wait … and you wait … and you wait … for the unresponsive hiring manager to get back to you. I don’t know any one thing that can irritate a human resources professional than an unresponsive hiring manager.
This happened recently to a friend of mine, Frank. He worked late nights, Saturday, and really busted his tail to find qualified candidates for a Master Planner position that the head of the Materials Group of a large manufacturer just “had to hire right away” or so he said. These resumes sat on her desk for two weeks and by the time Frank went to setup the interviews, two of the three candidates had accepted other offers. Of course, one candidate wasn’t enough for this unresponsive hiring manager, so Frank had to start over. Why does this happen? Why does something that is a priority to the unresponsive hiring manager become so unimportant. While there are many different reasons this can happen, the bottom line is that somehow the hiring manager has other things that are taking a priority. The better question is how can you prevent this from happening. The key to preventing a hiring manager from becoming unresponsive is to get an upfront commitment.An upfront commitment is an oral agreement between you and the hiring manager that sets the expectations before any work is done on a job req. In this case, when Frank received the req. for this position, he could have said to the hiring manager, “I have a lot of work, so help me prioritize … would you say this job req. is hot, warm, or cold?” Of course, the answer would have been hot. Then, Frank could come back with, “so let’s make an agreement – I’ll work overtime to get you candidates, I’ll do whatever it takes, but I am going to ask you for a commitment …” and spell out exactly what you want the hiring manager to agree to. For example, an upfront commitment might include the following:
- 24 hour “yes” or “no” on all resumes
- 48 hour ‘yes”, “no”, or “need a 2nd interview” on all interviews
- Reply to all emails (from you) about position within 4 business hours This accomplishes two things. First, the unresponsive hiring manager may not realize how much work you will have to do (or how much of a burden it is) to come up with candidates, so you are telling her what is involved on your end. Second, the unresponsive hiring manager might not know what is expected of him. He may think that by sitting on the resumes, she is lessening the burden on you since you won’t have to call the candidates back right away. Opening up the lines of communication can save a lot of ill feelings in the end and create a more productive and cohesive team, minimizing response time, and , as a result, increasing productivity.
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