Handling Difficult Hiring Managers | @MR_Recruits on The #SocialRecruiting Show

With hiring managers, empathy is key!

Hiring managers are central to ALL recruitment activities and every recruiter, whether in-house or agency-wide, understand the importance of engaging and building relationships with your HM’s. For those of you that still have that one tricky, elusive and vague hiring manager, we decided to invite the ‘Hiring Manager Whisperer’ himself, Michael Rasmussen on to talk about his successful approach.

Michael has an interesting background as he has direct recruitment experience combined with HR sales and consultancy; in 2012 he joined ADT as Senior Talent Acquisition Business Partner and continues to be an active blogger and commentator on all things recruitment including key focus areas such as Veterans hiring and ensuring consistent diversity and inclusion across ADT.

Mike reminds us that

“Every hiring manager has their own traits and needs and how they approach things, and we, as recruiters, need to remember they are human and they mean well. The aim is to make sure that the partnership goes smoothly”.

In addition, he tells us that first meeting is key to your success; “the recruitment strategy meeting is a big one, that’s the foundation” and the emphasis on the recruiter is to “ask good questions” and “come to that meeting with data”.

Be assertive and show your value

Asking Mike about that first contact with a hiring manager, he advises that you,

“Be assertive, you can’t be afraid to speak up. You have to tell them about what your value is, to them and the process.”

Additionally, he tells us “empathy is the big thing from the hiring manager and candidate side, you have to balance the empathy” or “the partnership is going to struggle” and you can only achieve this success by being “honest and candid”.

If that wasn’t enough, below you’ll hear Michael talk about:

• The importance of mapping the hiring manager community  
• Educating hiring managers on the market 
• Be confident enough to challenge Hiring Managers
• Research and Data – keys to success! 
• Recruiter toolkit for hiring manager meetings 
• Using review sites to educate the hiring manager