When a company or department recognizes they are understaffed, they quickly find themselves in a catch-22 situation. There are not enough people to handle the current workload. This means a team manager, who is already experiencing an overloaded docket of duties is asked to take the time to define a position, attract candidates to apply for the position, conduct interviews, collect interview feedback and then onboard and train a new employee. The HR department may be helpful or may be another to-do on the overloaded docket. Managing the hiring process is often touted as an important managerial skill but it is often the task at hand when the workload is exceeding the capabilities of the team. The circumstances under which hiring is necessary and possible can easily become a trap of conflicting priorities for hiring managers. It is often like hiring managers are asked to change a flat tire while still driving down the road, providing the vision and route to their team as they are bounced and jostled down the road toward team goals.
Define Position for team focus during the hiring process:
To get out of this catch-22, a hiring manager must be supported in staying focused on their most important duty of keeping their team focused on important team goals. A recruiter must provide an efficient mechanism to collect information about the direction the new role will support that is probably not included in an HR produced position description. This is the information that is key to sourcing candidates that are motivated by the direction of the team while also being key to maintaining the focus of the team. A skilled recruiter will turn the catch-22 upside down by shedding light on mutually beneficial dependencies and will transfer the vision and route of the team to the best-fit candidates.
Sourcing Candidates:
Traditional recruiters search by keywords trying to match those provided by a position description. A skilled recruiter will use the roadmap to find the most qualified and motivated candidates. The best new employee is probably currently working and not optimizing their online profiles with the keywords in your position description. A skilled recruiter will understand the direction of your team to be able to reach out and network to find those candidates. A hiring manager should only be asked to review candidates that have been screened and the recruiter should be providing clear feedback as to how the candidate fits on the team roadmap. This time spent by the hiring manager should continue to build the roadmap that will be used in both the hiring and onboarding process.
The Hiring-Time Challenge Solution:
In the end, the solution to this time challenge for hiring managers is to get the right support. The roadmap to filling a highly technical empty slot on a team with a qualified staff member that contributes to your company’s success does not have to be traveled solo.