Hiring managers serve a critical role in the ecosystem of human resources and talent acquisition. They are some of the main decision-makers when it comes to selecting new employees and building their teams. However, the role of a hiring manager is often more complex than meets the eye.
So, what is a hiring manager, and what does a hiring manager do? This article breaks down their core responsibilities and explains how they fit into the world of hiring and recruiting.
Understanding the Hiring Manager’s Job
Before answering, “What does a hiring manager do?” it’s important to note that hiring managers are often temporary, secondary roles. In most cases, there isn’t one single hiring manager whose only job is to make hiring decisions. The hiring manager for any given role is often the person who oversees that job. This is because the direct supervisor can provide valuable insights about the role that can help them select the best possible candidate.
For example, the head of marketing may be the acting hiring manager for a marketing coordinator job. In addition to their typical duties, they will temporarily act as hiring manager to ensure they select the right match for their team. Because they have an in-depth understanding of how the marketing department functions and how different roles interact, they’ll be able to make the most informed decision when selecting a final candidate.
1. Responsibilities
What does a hiring manager do aside from their primary position? When someone steps into the role of hiring manager, they take on several key duties. During the candidate search process, they will oversee these key tasks:
- Determining Staffing Needs: Hiring managers will work with HR and company leadership to determine when and if they need to hire a new person for their team.
- Managing the Hiring Team: They will assemble a team of people to assist with the hiring process and conduct additional interviews with candidates.
- Selecting Candidates to Interview: After receiving a list of candidates, they will determine which applicants should move on to the interview phase.
- Overseeing the Interview Process: Along with conducting interviews themselves, hiring managers may also coordinate multiple rounds of interviews with different members of the hiring team. They’ll review notes and feedback from other team members when making hiring decisions.
- Choosing New Employees: Hiring managers have the final say on who they will hire to join the team.
- Sending Job Offers: After collaborating with HR to outline compensation and benefits, they will send the official job offer and negotiate with their top candidate.
- Training New Staff: Once a new hire joins the team, the hiring manager often assists with onboarding and training. Because they’re usually one of the supervisors of the new hire, they’ll be able to help them fully transition into the role.
2. Challenges
Balancing their responsibilities is a challenge in itself, but hiring managers can face several additional roadblocks during the hiring process.
Before they even begin the vetting process, they need to make sure that they’re attracting qualified candidates. Even if an outside recruiter handles the initial selection phase, the hiring manager still needs to ensure that job postings and hiring materials will attract top talent.
They also need to balance these hiring processes along with their other duties. With so many steps in the vetting, interviewing, and assessment process, it can be easy for talented candidates to fall through the cracks, ultimately making it harder to find the right match. This is particularly challenging in competitive fields where talented candidates are often being courted by multiple companies. Hiring managers need to make sure all of their materials are up to date at each step in the hiring process so they can act quickly and secure top talent.
3. Skills
Hiring managers need to have adept interpersonal and administrative abilities. Effective hiring managers typically have skills such as:
- Communication: Hiring managers constantly communicate with recruiters, candidates, and HR professionals. They need to be able to manage communication over multiple channels and ensure they’re accurately representing the role and the company during interviews and beyond.
- Decision-Making and Critical Thinking: Because they’re responsible for making the final selection, hiring managers must have keen decision-making abilities. They should be able to assess the proficiency of each candidate and consider how they would fit within the team and the wider company culture.
- Technical abilities: Hiring managers need to be able to recognize technically skilled candidates, which means they need to have some background in the role they’re hiring for. For example, a hiring manager filling a software development role would need enough coding and programming knowledge to be able to assess the skills of potential hires.
Hiring Managers vs. Recruiters: What’s the Difference?
Hiring managers and recruiters work together throughout the talent acquisition process, but they actually have distinct roles. While people typically take on the hiring manager role in a short-term capacity, recruiting is a full-time position in itself. Recruiters are HR professionals who source and screen candidates before handing them off to the hiring manager.
For example, the hiring manager might create the initial job description with a list of duties and qualifications for the role. Then, the recruiter would use this information to create job postings or browse talent databases to find potential candidates. After conducting initial screening calls, the recruiter would then provide a shortlist of qualified applicants to the hiring manager. From there, the hiring manager would oversee the rest of the application and interview process. After selecting a candidate, they would work with HR to send the final job offer and begin onboarding.
Other Terms for Hiring Managers
Because hiring managers are usually existing employees, it can be challenging to find a hiring manager job. However, job seekers can search for similar positions, such as:
- HR Generalist
- HR Coordinator
- Recruiting Manager
- Personnel Manager
These positions often have many of the same responsibilities as a hiring manager. They can write job descriptions, assist with the interview process, and support onboarding. The difference is that they provide general hiring and onboarding support to a wide variety of roles and departments; they can even support multiple companies if they work for an external HR firm. Meanwhile, hiring managers are usually homed in on finding talent for their specific teams.
Embracing the Role of Hiring Manager
People often ask, “What is a hiring manager?” and “What does a hiring manager do?” to learn about career options related to human resources and recruitment. Exploring these questions can also help people better understand the role of the hiring manager in the overall hiring process. Although hiring managers conduct their hiring activities alongside their main roles, many other full-time and part-time positions exclusively revolve around talent acquisition and management.
Our professional staffing experts at Daley And Associates help both job seekers and employers throughout the hiring process. Our services are designed to support employers from search to onboarding to ensure they get the right candidate every time. And if you’re looking for a career related to hiring, the Daley team has resources in place to connect job seekers with relevant open roles. Contact us today to explore our full-service staffing solutions and step into the world of hiring and recruitment.
