The Voice of Change

THE VOICE OF CHANGE 

Have you ever wondered that there is only one definition of success, however thousands of interpretations? Let us see the below examples:

• One of the footballer’s successes is to win a game with the team and score a goal individually.
• A firefighter’s can be to save lives and ensure that nobody was hurt during the emergency action.
• A teacher’s success begins with the success of their students.

And they don’t have to be the ones mentioned, basically, you can repeat the same pattern in countless ways. How about the success of Recruiters and their partners i.e., Hiring Managers? We would like to show you ours and the way we REVOLUTIONIZED the cooperation.

WHAT IS HR CONTACT’S SUCCESS?  

On our website you can read that: “Our mission is to unleash the business potential of our clients by providing professional and comprehensive support in all areas of HR”.

We care for people, so we can say that our success is connecting the right candidates to meet and succeed. Sometimes this road can be long and winding, but our goal is to find a shortcut to make it as efficient as possible.

Unfortunately, we are also facing spanners at work. Those who are in this HR business will not be surprised that cooperation with Hiring Managers can be a challenge for both sides.

Why is that? The former may have had bad experiences in the past and consider the HR team as a necessary evil and burden (trust us, we are not that bad! ). On the other hand, HR professionals struggle with Hiring Managers’ constant decision changes but no recruiter will claim that it is a great idea to interview a number of people before deciding what the real hiring requirements are.

COLLABORATION WITH DECISION-MAKERS 

In addition to that what if we distinguish three types of Hiring Managers:

• A person who may feel confused when it comes to the recruitment process and simply does not like this part of their job.
• A person who is constantly overwhelmed with other tasks and finds zero time to be fully involved in the process.
• A person who is looking for a unicorn who is wearing many hats and can be a jack of all trades.

On the other hand, Recruiters get frustrated when Hiring Managers:

• Open a vacancy that must be filled ASAP;
• Are unsatisfied with the quality of the candidates without previously providing clear job requirements;
• Have unrealistic expectations when it comes to people they want to hire;
• Do not provide feedback on time once the candidate recommendations are submitted for evaluation.

From our experience, it is crucial to understand what kind of manager you are working with and determine what action plan to take in order to help such a manager with reaching their hiring goals.  Before, we are going to explain how this cooperation could be established in order to be successful, let’s first go back in time.

What would you say about the year 2014? Some of you may remember that during that time agencies were mainly perceived as CV suppliers. It was due to the fact that companies considered agencies as the ultimate evil. Then, the old model of the recruitment process included posting a job ad, waiting for applications, shortlisting “the chosen ones” and sending them to the HM. Everything done by the book and the placement – Hurray!

LET’S DIVE DEEPER INTO: CAN WE STILL COUNT ON THE TRADITIONAL APPROACH? 

Frankly speaking, considering such a competitive market nowadays, when each candidate is at a premium, we would bury that theory.

The “power struggle” between hiring managers and the recruitment teams has been going on for ages.  Now, during the time when we have to fight for the best talent to join our companies, it is the best time to end the struggle and start aligning the needs of hiring managers and recruiters, so as a team you can successfully achieve the company’s strategic recruitment goals.

History knows several ideas for improving relations between HR and Hiring Managers. From nice treats like regular small talk, constant updates regarding the process, and having lunch or coffee together. Or more extreme ones like signing the document with a set of rules indicating how to proceed and giving penalties like resigning from the process when e.g., feedback isn’t given on time.

You may start thinking, how not to go crazy and find a happy medium that will work for both sides. Don’t worry, we did the job for you and finally may have the solution. On that account, we thought that after all HR professionals are able to see the big picture and are strategic in building a productive workplace. It is like planning a battle: who we need, for how long, what job they need to do, and overall, how to deploy resources to win – we have put ourselves in the Managers’ shoes when they do workforce planning.

We are no longer passive listeners to the requirements a candidate should have, but we started being the advocates and the main voice of the change, based on the knowledge of how the market is currently performing and being aware of how realistically we can approach recruitment. During the brief call meetings or based on the job description, we project what the other party might expect, and, from the outset, we devise various scenarios that we can then discuss together in order to achieve the desired effect.

There are many additional activities that you can do to support that – we developed our way, but let it remain uncovered by our clients. Those who already experienced that change of ours appreciate engagement, different perspective and really feel that we play for the same goal. You can read on our Clutch page the following client’s reviews:

“We would like HR Contact to challenge us even more in terms of vocalizing our needs even faster”. 

“Their novel approach (…). They worked so well that we now use them for all of our overseas recruitment around the globe.” 

“Perfect fit of candidates not only on the substantive layer but also on their personality. Building a team of highly qualified experts full of matching individuals is not an easy task”.

Since all of us – HR professionals are experts, it is time to show your expertise to Hiring Managers and transform the cooperation into a rewarding partnership. One simple move and suddenly both parties know why they have taken this decision to cooperate with each other in the first place.

Franklin D. Roosevelt once said: “It’s common sense to take a method, and if it fails, to try another. But above all, try something.” For us, the transition from the old school to the new school in Hiring Managers’ collaboration was a try that marked a new approach to building up an HR agency brand valued for reliability and efficiency.

WHAT IS OUR NEXT RECIPE FOR SUCCESS? 

Some ideas are already going around our heads… Stay tuned!

 Authors: Anna Drzał, Dominika Kutyła