Hiring managers are crucial to the recruitment and hiring process at many HigherEd institutions.
Understanding the challenges that hiring managers face and supporting them in their roles is key to ensuring that they are successful in hiring top talent for your institution. Read on for some tips on how you can empower your hiring managers
Develop a talent pipeline
Sourcing talent is a major challenge for hiring managers, and one of the best ways to make this easier is by building a diverse talent pool. Use your ATS to keep track of anyone who has expressed interest in open roles, even if they haven’t actually applied for anything. In your candidate portal, be sure to offer an option to sign up for job alerts. Don’t lose track of candidates who applied for a role and ended up not being hired—that person might be a great fit for another open role on your campus. Keeping this talent engaged with communications (like notifications about new open roles) helps build your talent pipeline. A talent pool with interested or even pre-vetted candidates means hiring managers can seek out qualified applicants, instead of waiting for applications to come in
Collaborate on the hiring strategy
Involving your hiring managers in the creation or editing of a job description can go a long way towards making their jobs easier. Hiring managers may have different knowledge about a position’s duties or required skill, and have an understanding of how to phrase those requirements to appeal to the right candidates. The hiring manager should also help define the target audience, as that can impact where the position is advertised and which candidate pools should be engaged. A collaborative process means that HR and hiring managers with be aligned from the start about the needs of the search, reducing the chance of disagreement on candidates later in the process.
Create an employer brand
A defined employer brand is also key to making sure hiring managers are successful in their roles. Communicating early and clearly with candidates about the values, culture, and qualities of your institution as an employer helps job seekers understand why they might want to work on your campus, meaning that candidates who make it to the final round will already have a sense of culture fit. This makes the job of a hiring manager much easier, because they are more likely to be spending their time interviewing and vetting candidates who truly want to work at your institution. For some tips on developing an employer brand at your institution, check out this blog post.
Offer the right tools and technology
Making sure that your hiring managers have the right tools to source, hire, and interview candidates is one of the best ways to ensure an efficient and effective hiring process. Recruitment marketing tools can help share job postings widely at the click of a button. Virtual interview tools can help reduce hands-on interview time, while communication tools and chatbots can reduce the time hiring managers spend doing initial candidate outreach. A user-friendly applicant tracking system that offers dashboards specifically for hiring managers, like PeopleAdmin’s ATS, offers quick access to the information that is important to hiring managers, like the status on their open positions or candidates. This means fewer status update requests for HR and fewer delays, saving time for everyone involved. Make sure that your hiring managers are focused on candidates, not on outdated processes.
Final thoughts
Hiring managers carry a big load when it comes to the recruitment process, but it’s possible to make their challenges easier to tackle. When you empower your hiring managers, your entire institution will discover a faster, more efficient hiring process. For more information about tools to support your hiring managers, reach out to PeopleAdmin’s solution experts.