Managing Recruiters
What is the best way to manage recruiters in your office? While some manager prefer a heavily hands on approach others are much more hands off. When does the hands on approach become too burdensome and curb the natural productivity of a recruiter and when does excessive hands off development lead to recruiter failure and potential burn out?
The best way to manage recruiters is with a limited hands on approach that does not stifle their natural creativity yet does not leave them with a feeling of “survival of the fittest”. Manager A will hover over his recruiters and demand that certain productivity markers be met. He will harp on these numbers daily, often coming around to make sure that the call volume is not sinking and that the submittal machine is in full swing. This manager will be keen on forcing the recruiter into his mold recruiting on positions that may or may not be good strategic fills. The most positive note of this style is that the recruiter will feel that the manager is there for him and will stay on his toes in terms of performance and actual labor input. One negative side effect is that this recruiter will not be able to recruit creatively and will find ways of foiling the statistics, whether by submitting unscreened candidates or calling though the white pages without focus to fulfill their quota.
The lax manager on the other hand will sit back and watch the machine run. If one cog in the machine is not operating at the production level, this manager will dully note this occurrence and will passively attempt t correct the behavior. At times, the manager will give no input into how the performance should be improved but will merely state that performance is not up to par and will leave it at that while the floundering recruiter will be left to wonder about what exactly is going on and why his numbers are not matching up to the company totals. The hand’s of manager will hire new employees and instead of hovering over them and ensuring smooth integration into the machine, will let them sink or float. IF the recruiter begins producing so much the better, if the recruiter flounders then a new body will be brought in to replace the dead weight.
The most effective method of managing is to fuse these two approaches and attempt to isolate the causes that are the destructive forces within each style. The perfect manager would bring on a new hire and coach them in the ways of the business. Even seasoned recruiters need this approach for the machine they are leaving is seldom the same machine that they are entering. The hand holding should depend on the maturity of the recruiter. If the manager hovers too much, the recruiter may become dependent and be unable to perform independently when weaned from the initial care of the manager. If the recruiter is let alone and allowed to continue his previous style of recruiting without early correction, the recruiter may waste valuable time in applying the wrong style to the current machine without proper adjustments. While senior recruiters should be encouraged to develop their own style within the confines of the recruiting strategy of the company, new recruiters should be supported until they are comfortable.
Survival of the fittest is a sound strategy for creating cut through recruiting practices and while it makes for effective sales people it undercut the team mentality that many companies are attempting to enact.
Thus a manager should be neither too hands off and reliant on numbers, nor too restrictive and vigilant of every phone call a recruiter makes. A golden rule should be to monitor progress without overly strict interference and harmful criticism that may jeopardize the employee team relationship by appearing to single out recruiters based solely on unsound statistical analysis.Technical recruiting and online entrepreneurship blog
