Collaborating For Success: Overcoming the Industry Experience Barrier With Hiring Managers
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As recruiters, we sure have a lot on our plates. And one of those many balls we’re juggling is the art of negotiation and persuasion. Get it right, and we’re superheroes, delivering exactly what our hiring managers are after. Plus, we get to bust some biases, inject some realness, and keep things ethical while we’re at it.
But let’s be real; it doesn’t always go as smoothly as we’d like.
Like in this scenario: You’re chatting with a hiring manager, and they drop this one on you: “I am only seeking to hire individuals with industry experience.”
Ouch, right? A super-specific request that seems to put a hefty padlock on your candidate pool. But don’t fret! We’re in this together, and there’s a way through.
Understanding the Hiring Manager’s Perspective
To comprehend this situation, it’s important to view it through the lens of the hiring manager. As a manager, first and foremost, they’re constantly juggling performance goals, workplace priorities, and personal accountability. Hence, when an open position in their team arises, they wish for a candidate who can hit the ground running immediately.
The belief driving restrictive requirements, such as pedigree bias, stems from the assumption that this type of candidate would deliver quickly, allowing the team to refocus on core departmental responsibilities.
However, as a recruiter, your goal is not to convince the hiring manager that the person they want is unqualified. Instead, your goal is to show them the person they want is not the only qualified candidate for the role.
Rethinking ‘Qualified’
In the recruiting industry, we’ve all been guilty of sometimes thinking within the box. In case you’ve come across the article “Who is Really Qualified” by JTC, let me remind you: ‘qualified’ is not always what you think it is. Here’s the bottom line: it’s reasonable to consider an individual’s academic background, employment history, and industry experience as indicators of qualification.
The real issue emerges when you start disregarding candidates who don’t fit this mold as unqualified. It’s entirely possible for a candidate with a different background to be just as—if not more—qualified to perform successfully in a role. Hence, it’s crucial not to allow pedigree bias to shrink your candidate pool.
Here, your job as a recruiter is to guide the hiring manager in rethinking who they perceive as qualified (and unqualified). Transferable skills, even those garnered outside the industry, do not render a candidate unqualified. Rather, they present a different route to qualification. As long as you cannot effectively evaluate a person’s abilities devoid of bias, many qualified individuals will be overlooked simply because they don’t fit the typical mold.
Here’s How You Can Respond
In your next recruitment planning meeting, discuss the career paths of top performers within the hiring manager’s department or a specific role. You may need to do some groundwork to gather the necessary data—resumes of the identified top performers. Look for unconventional career trajectories and the diverse companies where these individuals have worked. Identify alternative job titles and transferable skills these top performers brought to the company. Share these findings with the hiring manager.
Presenting this data can help shift the mindset that being qualified or high-performing on their team necessitates a specific pedigree. Demonstrate to the hiring manager, using real data, that multiple paths lead to being qualified and high-performing in the role or within their department. Once you and the hiring manager find alignment in this perspective, ensure they’re comfortable with you executing a wider sourcing strategy. This strategy should embrace non-traditional career paths, transferable skill sets, and companies outside the standard industry confines.
It’s all about broadening the horizon of what ‘qualified’ can look like and helping the hiring manager see it, too. We are all on the same team, after all, seeking the best for the company. So, let’s take this challenge head-on and turn it into an opportunity for learning, growth, and eventual success.
Join me in the comments: I’d love to hear about your most recent run-ins with your hiring managers. Did you have to negotiate something with them? How did you navigate these negotiations? Sharing these golden insights benefits everyone in the recruitment world. So don’t hold back—spill the beans! Let’s get a conversation started right here in the comments. Happy recruiting!
