Why Hiring Managers Need Training to Select Best-Fit Talent

In recent years the role of recruiting best-fit talent has begun to shift from the remit of the HR department to being the responsibility of hiring managers. This shift has taken place as companies adopt new tactics to compete for talent in the workplace.

Hiring managers are best placed to sell prospective roles to candidates but do they have the interview techniques and skillset to effectively recruit best-fit talent into the workplace?

In this article we look at what is needed to address this potential lack of training, to help hiring managers adopt best practice techniques during the hiring process.

Jump to section:

1. Why hiring managers need to be totally responsible for hiring
2. What a good hiring manager should be able to do
3. Considerations for making a hiring manager 100% responsible for hiring
4. The importance of a positive candidate experience
5. The need for interview training
6. Understanding unconscious bias
7. Why soft skills are important in the hiring process
8. CLP courses that can help

Why hiring managers need to be totally responsible for hiring

Hiring managers are often tasked with the job of hiring the best-fit talent. Often these potential candidates are passive candidates and are otherwise fully employed with another company.

A good hiring manager needs to be proactive in engaging with and recruiting these people, convincing them the job represents a wise career move. This takes a specific skillset to do and is why the recruitment process has shifted in recent years from being the responsibility of the HR department to being undertaken by specific hiring managers.

A good hiring manager should be able to:

• describe the big challenges and the impact the job can have on a project, the company’s mission or some strategic initiative
• understanding the candidate’s major comparable accomplishments
• adopt a high-touch consultative selling process
• be able to compare candidate quality

Considerations for making a hiring manager 100% responsible for hiring

If a hiring manager is fully responsible for every person she or he hires, they need to possess the right skillset to see the process through.

Whilst a hiring manager might be good at ‘selling’ a role to a candidate it is important to recognise they might not have had the right training to undertake behavioural interviewing – a crucial part of the recruitment process. If they are lacking in this department their approach might be inadequate and often counterproductive for assessing competency and motivation to do the actual work required.

Recruiting the wrong person is costly and a waste of resources. Attracting and selecting best-fit talent will yield the best returns for companies, which is why it is crucial to focus on getting the recruitment selection process right. A high employee turnover puts pressure on the resources of an organisation and isn’t conducive to achieving growth and results.

The importance of a positive candidate experience

Candidates will experience a company’s values through each touchpoint of the recruitment process. Talent attraction and acquisition can be a high-pressured process especially if there is an increasingly competitive job market with a lack of good quality candidates to choose from.

This is why it is vitally important hiring managers are equipped with the right training to ensure candidates are exposed to a positive hiring process and experience. A negative experience is likely to influence a candidate’s decision to accept a job offer should they be selected.

The need for interview training

If a candidate has multiple job offers, they will tend to go for the employer that has created a good candidate experience, especially when it comes to the interview process.

To be effective at interviewing, a good hiring manager should have undergone a training process to equip them in this area. The interview process can be tricky to navigate without training.

> Watch: Best interview techniques for virtual interviews

Understanding unconscious bias

Bias is a natural inclination of our minds and neuroscience shows that up to 99% of our thoughts can be unconscious. While this serves us well in routine situations, bias can also lead to false assumptions about ourselves and others that can have a negative impact on our relationships and personal performance.

Unconscious bias can impact a hiring manager’s decision making process if they are unaware of how it could affect them. Identifying their biases and learning tools to help mitigate them will allow a hiring manager to make professional and effective decisions about candidates without bias.

Why soft skills are important in the hiring process

If a hiring manager is inexperienced in the recruitment process there is a danger they could become too focused on technical skills and overlook the importance of a candidate’s soft skills.

Checking off a list of education credentials and relevant work experience isn’t the only thing a seasoned recruiter should be doing to spot the right talent. Identifying and placing value on soft skills will make all the difference in how well the candidate will fit within a company’s workplace culture and can often impact the longevity of a candidate’s career with a company.

Relevant courses to help

At CLP we offer courses designed to help hiring managers be the best they can be. Whether it be our highly successful Attract and Select Top-Talent programme or our bias busting workshop – Unconscious Bias, we have the course for you.

Our programmes are available as ready-made products to help you react quickly and effectively to changing market demands. However, our ready-made courses can also be combined with others and customised to create an effective pathway to achieve your desired results or entirely customised to your organisation’s requirements and needs.

For more information contact us.