So often managers cannot clearly explain what kind of person they need to fill a position. They call up the recruiter with a new position but with very little in the way of competencies or specific job duties. The typical phone call goes something like this: “I want to open up a req for a webmaster.” Recruiter says, “Okay. Can you tell me what this person will be doing?” Manager: “They’ll be working on the corporate web page – you know, revising the code, updating the look, and that kind of stuff.” Recruiter: “What specific skills should they have?” Manager: “Oh, I don’t know. Probably should already be a web master somewhere. They should have at least 3 years experience and a degree in computer science.” And so forth. . . Unfortunately, not very helpful. Kind of like telling the used car salesman that you want a big red car with low mileage. As a recruiter you have to have a process for getting the information you need from the manager. Here are a handful of suggestions about how to construct a better job description than you usually get – but be warned: none of these are easy and all will require you to invest some time and energy into understanding your managers and your company better.
- Spend the time it takes to know your company’s technology, products and services. One of the big downsides of the constant turnover of recruiters in firms is that fewer and fewer know what the company really does or really needs. Firms that have a stable base of recruiters who have taken the time to become well versed in the language and technology are much more effective. But, any recruiter can get the basics down by taking a tour, chatting with selected experts, maybe even working for a day or two at whatever it is his hiring managers are doing. Really good recruiting teams train themselves by offering brown bag lunches and invite key employees to talk about what they do. Focus on the business needs more than on recruiting techniques such as data mining and site flipping. While these may be useful at times, it is far more useful to know exactly who you are looking for.
- Interview current incumbents. Take the time to find someone in your firm who does the same job you are recruiting for or a similar one. Ask them about their background, skills, education, and interests and how they got hired. Do this with enough people and you will have a pretty good profile of what kinds of skills are needed and where these people can be found. Really good agency recruiters have been putting together profiles like this for years. A free lunch can be a great way to get an inside track on a hard-to-find candidate. If there are no incumbents, network. Find some similar people in another company and offer them a lunch or dinner in return for suffering through your questions. This activity alone can be all you need to become much more effective. Investing a few hours in investigation and detective work can pay off in being able to find the right people a lot faster.
- Develop a good interview to get the information you need from the hiring manager. Put together a few recruiters and develop a set of questions that would give you the specifics you need to start looking for a person for a specific position. Take the hiring manager to lunch, or set up a 30-minute meeting, and use that time to conduct your interview. Make sure it has questions about why a particular skill or trait or educational level is needed. Probe and ask the manager to point out some really good performers currently working for her and then go interview those people to find out what their profile is like.
If you find that the profile you develop is way off base from the hiring manager’s perception, be sure to sit down and go through the discrepancies step-by-step. Work out why the manager’s perception is so far off from want you found and try to get the manager to accept – even on a trial basis – a new set of criteria. This is one of the most common issues recruiters face and to be successful you have to be able to negotiate and sell to the hiring manager.
- Educate the management team about the market and the limited availability of people. While this can be looked upon as an excuse, a well-structured presentation focused on facts can also be taken in a positive way. It can show that you are on top of things, understand the market, and have a strategy in place to deal with the issues IF you can have their cooperation. CFOs make the market situation clear to the CEO and the rest of the management and also have suggestions for dealing with whatever market situation exists. You have to do the same. The biggest mistake I see is that the education is perceived as whining because many recruiters offers no suggestions on how to deal with it.
- Do not accept a shallow and useless job description. By accepting the shallow set of requirements we often get from the hiring managers, we reinforce that it’s okay. We have to reasonably push back using some of the techniques I have described. But if you accept these poorly thought out criteria you will waste time and be accused of not being able to find the right people. This will only work against you in the end. Recruiting is a partnership between you and the hiring manager and it is, perhaps unfortunately but truly, your responsibility to change it.