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A couple of years ago, I started the hiring process for a Marketing Executive. My team needed a generalist who was also strong in social media. It was a big channel for us but we were running it ad hoc and I knew it could explode if we put some focus on it.
I got our HR team to put out an advert and I did some searching myself. Then my line manager said we needed someone who had some Google Ads expertise, or at least a willingness to learn. I added that in.
Later that week, our CEO came to me with someone they’d met at a networking event. “We need to hire this person for that marketing role, they’re excellent”. Their CV had neither SEO or ads experience…
By the end of the first week, the whole hiring team was annoyed, the requirements had been changed three times and HR were getting frustrated.
This story, or something similar, will probably sound familiar to lots of people involved in hiring.
Hiring Team Misalignment Happens All The Time
At Solutions Driven, we have multiple calls a week with teams of stakeholders who all have different ideas of who they want to hire, the skills they want, and where they want them to be located.
Often, the team doesn’t even realise they’re misaligned until we get on that call.
Sometimes, the reason they’ve brought us in is because the skills and qualities they want are so widespread they literally can’t find someone who possesses them all.
Sometimes we get on the call and one person says “why would you want X, I’m looking for Y!”
The hiring team are all rolling their eyes at each other, they all have hugely different ideas of the outcome they want. My example was a fairly junior role, but when it’s a business critical hire, it becomes even more vital to keep everyone happy. If the business is hiring for a C-suite or senior management role, they’ll be working with lots of people, all of whom will have expectations of the hire.
Recruiters Should Be Mediators
The first thing a recruiter should be doing in this situation is, is to align the hiring team. It’s our job to ensure everyone is happy with the person who is eventually hired.
Something which isn’t going to happen if their line manager doesn’t agree with the original job spec. Or the CEO thinks they’re getting someone who has specific experience that they don’t.
Take one of our recent clients. A fast-growing company in need of a Head Product Manager. When we got on a call together, various members of their team had different ideas of what the role should entail. And none of them had realised how different their views were.
Through our initial scoping call, we pinpointed that while the whole team wanted the same outcome, they all had different ideas on how their new hire would achieve it. So we calibrated their Candidate Fit Scorecard to represent the skills needed for the right outcome.
The top scoring candidate was the one eventually hired and is now excelling in their role.
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Why Should Recruiters Care If Everyone Is Happy?
You might be thinking – if the hiring manager is happy and the person we’ve picked takes the job, surely that’s a good thing?
But if even one of the team feels they don’t have the right person, there’s an issue. If your boss doesn’t get what they thought they would, that hire starts off at a disadvantage.
And for someone to enjoy their job, they need to feel successful. If they don’t feel successful and one or more of the stakeholders isn’t aligned, that person is less likely to last in their role.
One of the most important parts of recruitment is getting the right person in the role and for them to stay there. There’s absolutely no point in hiring someone who won’t last in the role and you end up going through the same process three months later.
For recruiters, they’re mostly measured on filling roles. But actually, hiring retention should be one of the most important gauges of success.
It’s why at Solutions Driven, we offer a 12 month guarantee on all roles. Hiring processes can be hard work and complicated and we want to get it right first time, every time. We manage it 97% of the time, so it’s not too bad…
If you have a problem role where you can’t get your hiring team aligned, or you’re not sure of the skills and qualities you need for a specific role, get in touch.
Our team work on roles in 60 countries across industries including science, tech, manufacturing and engineering and know how to hone your needs down to the get the right person.
