Hiring manager satisfaction is critical in a successful recruitment process. After all, they’re the people who will make the final decision in determining which applicant is selected for the position in question.
Keeping hiring managers satisfied and engaged, therefore, is in the recruiter’s best interest. It makes the hiring process more smooth and increases the likelihood of a successful hiring.
Engaged hiring managers also have a direct impact on candidate interest, with 94% o candidates saying that being contacted by their prospective manager can make them accept a job offer faster. Engagement, of course, is directly tied to satisfaction.
This article will discuss hiring manager satisfaction in more detail, explain why it’s important and how to measure it, and outline some ways that you can improve it.
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What is a hiring manager?
Hiring managers are responsible for recruiting employees to fill available positions in an organization and often become the new employee's future supervisor.
They work closely with the HR team, which oversees the interview and hiring processes. A hiring manager’s primary objective is to select the most suitable candidate based on their qualifications.
What is hiring manager satisfaction?
Hiring manager satisfaction is a recruitment KPI that indicates how happy or satisfied the hiring manager is with the hiring process in an organization.
Tracking hiring manager satisfaction helps in identifying what needs to be improved.
Why is measuring hiring manager satisfaction important?
An Appcast study noted that recruiting costs have skyrocketed. The median cost per application grew from $19.96 to $28.47. Cost per click (CPC) increased even more, posting a stark 54% increase from $0.71 to $1.10. Hence, organizations must optimize the hiring process to save money.
Hiring managers, of course, play a pivotal role in the hiring process at every stage of the recruitment life cycle. Their satisfaction and engagement can make or break a recruitment effort, potentially wasting the time and money investment in that process.
When hiring managers are satisfied with the candidate hired, you:
- Save on recruitment costs - when hiring managers are happy with the new hire, they’re unlikely to fire them and recruit again for the replacement, saving the organization time and money. In addition, you avoid paying compensation and legal fees for letting go of ill-fitted candidates.
- Enhance employee well-being - the right person will do the job correctly, which gives their supervisors peace of mind. When happy, managers perform well with their teams and contribute tremendously to meeting company objectives.
- Improve employee engagement - the right person for the position tends to be highly engaged. Engaged employees impact their coworker’s success, increasing their productivity and morale in the company. They are less likely to be absent from work or quit the organization, which has positive financial implications.
- Keep the business running - when the person hired performs according to the company’s expectations and goals, there will be no disruption in daily operations. On the flip side, when making a bad hire, the company’s productivity is stalled, and deadlines are missed because the person isn’t fit for the job.
Conducting a survey is the most effective way to measure your hiring manager's satisfaction.
Creating a hiring manager satisfaction survey involves the following steps:
How to use a hiring manager satisfaction survey
Conducting a hiring manager satisfaction survey is the most effective way to measure your hiring manager's satisfaction.
Here’s how.
1. Define the objective
Determine the purpose of the survey, like identifying the areas to improve, measuring satisfaction levels, or gaining feedback on the effectiveness of the hiring process.
2. List survey questions
Brainstorm and write down questions that will give valuable information into the recruitment procedure. Questions could revolve around the quality of candidates, the HR team’s recruitment competencies, the recruitment strategies' effectiveness, or the speed of the hiring process.
Examples of hiring manager satisfaction survey questions are:
Candidate Quality:
- How satisfied are you with the quality of the candidates provided?
- How satisfied are you with the diversity of the candidate pool?
Recruitment Strategy:
- How satisfied are you with the accuracy of the job posting?
- How satisfied are you with the number of applications/resumes received?
- How satisfied are you with the recruitment and sourcing strategies used by HR?
- How satisfied are you with the screening and selection process?
- How satisfied are you with the structure of the interview procedure?
Hiring process:
- How satisfied are you with the accuracy of the job description and the documentation of the required skills and work experience?
- How satisfied are you with the speed of the hiring process?
HR’s Abilities/Skills:
- How satisfied are you with HR’s understanding of the job requirements and your needs as a hiring manager?
- How satisfied are you with your communication with the HR team during the hiring process?
- How satisfied are you with the support provided by HR during the hiring process?
- How likely are you to recommend the HR team to other hiring managers or other teams?
For each of the above questions, assign a rating scale that measures satisfaction levels such as Likert scale or numerical rating e.g.
Hiring managers can respond such as:
- 5 - strongly agree
- 4 - agree
- 3 - neutral
- 2 - disagree
- 1 - strongly disagree
You could also employ open-ended questions to know the reason behind the hiring manager’s ratings, for example:
- Why did you give that score?
- What could HR do to improve the candidate quality further?
- What could HR do to speed up the hiring process?
3. Send out the survey
Distribute the survey to hiring managers via email or survey software. Don’t forget to communicate the objectives of the survey.
4. Analyze the results
Collect the responses and analyze the data to identify hiring trends, pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in the recruitment process or what HR needs to do to improve the recruitment experience.
5. Share the results
Communicate the results to relevant stakeholders. Sharing the outcome of your hiring manager satisfaction survey shows that their time and opinions matter to HR and the management.
6. Create an action plan to address issues identified in the survey
Check first with the hiring managers if the proposed solutions are feasible and satisfactory before implementing them to avoid wasting time and effort
How to improve hiring manager satisfaction
Improving hiring manager satisfaction can be accomplished by taking a few key steps:
1. Understand their needs and preferences
Instead of emailing the hiring manager about the job requisition, sit down with them to discuss:
- Role - responsibilities of the person on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis
- Performance objectives - ask what the person taking the job needs to do throughout the first year to be successful in the job and help meet business objectives to avoid performance-related turnover
- Skill sets - clarify skills that necessary for the role versus those that are desirable or preferred only. To avoid confusion, ask them to elaborate on what it means that the person must have ‘good analytical skills specific to the role instead of accepting generic concepts.
- Organizational fit - means the candidate’s personality and values align with the company's norms and culture. The person may have the skills and qualifications, but if they are not a good fit for the organization culture-wise, they’re unlikely to stay long in the organization because of a mismatch between values.
2. Streamline the hiring process
Improve your hiring process by removing unnecessary steps, avoiding delays, and guaranteeing honest and clear communication throughout the hiring process. For example:
Write clear job descriptions
Ensure that job requirements and qualifications in the job requisitions are clear and accurately reflect the role’s daily responsibilities to attract the right people.
Use different recruitment methodologies
Use various hiring techniques to check which method increases candidate application and improves the quality of hire. For example, if staff members refer the highest quality of candidates, then you need to boost your employee referral program.
Use recruitment automation tools
Install chatbots to answer candidates’ initial queries on your career website. Reach thousands of job seekers via SMS and candidate texting. Use CRM (candidate relationship management) to nurture and engage passive candidates.
Learn how to use recruitmnt chatbots to streamline your hiring process and support recruiters.
Improve internal processes
Check your current hiring procedures to remove irrelevant practicess like trimming down job interview questions or eliminating round three job interview sessions.
Check alignment with the hiring manager
To avoid confusion that causes delays, ensure both parties set and agree to deadlines and service level agreements. They should also adhere to the same standardized interview process, from benchmarking applicants against the same job criteria to providing the appropriate message to candidates.
3. Build relationships
Transparency builds trust in the hiring process. You can gain the hiring manager's confidence by:
Being honest about your abilities
Inform the hiring manager about your capabilities. For instance, if you don’t have the technical knowledge to interview a developer or programmer, advise them so they can be included during the assessment and interview process. Or, if you still need more time than usual to gather candidates of a better caliber, be open so hiring managers can make adjustments.
Being prepared
As a recruiter, do your assignment to gain credibility. Aside from reading job requisitions, research the current trends and development in the labor market, specifically for the role you are recruiting for.
Go the extra mile by reporting the minimum and preferred qualifications for the position, sample candidate profiles for analysis, and information about salary ranges. If the talent competition is tight, demonstrate your sourcing skills to find passive candidates that fit the job description.
Proper presentation of all candidates
Present candidates truthfully because, as a recruiter, you are accountable for making sure they at least meet the minimum qualifications. It gives the impression that you spent the proper time with the candidates.
In return, hiring managers are more apt to listen and build relationships with you. When you have strong relationships with them, you can influence them with their hiring decisions, which can make a real difference.
Keeping them informed about the progress
Communicate throughout the hiring process, including updates on candidate sourcing, screening, and interviewing.
Updates can be a short email or quick note at key recruitment milestones, e.g. short meeting after x hours of job requisition, a summary of screened candidates for the week, follow-up calls after final interviews, or the latest on candidate offer status.
Set realistic expectations
There could be instances where it’s challenging to find a candidate that ticks all the job qualification boxes in a limited time frame. Hence, you can explain the reason for the delay and work together to experiment with other talent acquisition tactics or modify job qualifications.
Useful tip:
Example:
Hiring managers should prioritize the top 3 skills and experience that the person must have. Or maybe scale down on the level of expertise expected of the candidate and suggest that the acquisition of skills can be gained through the company’s learning and development programs as long as the candidate possesses the needed skills on a basic level.
Regularly ask for feedback.
Get feedback from your hiring managers to understand how the process works for them and what needs to be enhanced. Use this feedback to refine and improve the hiring process continuously.
Don't forget:
Don't forget:
Ensure that the hiring methods and process complies with company policies and legal regulations.
4. Provide the right data
Ensure that your hiring managers have the data they need to evaluate whether the individual will be the best fit for the position, how long they will likely stay with the organization, and their engagement levels.
For instance, talent pool data will help hiring managers to gain insights into the companies and industries where their ideal candidates work or determine the best universities and schools to source talent and how employees engage with their employers.
Or ATS data can give the details on channels that bring in the highest number of applicants. So if you receive the most number of applications from social media, then pour in more budget in LinkedIn or Facebook.
Want to know more about source of hire and how it can help support your hiring process?
5. Access to recruitment tools and software
If used correctly, hiring managers can leverage the tools to avoid making interview mistakes, give a good candidate experience and eventually, choose the right candidate.
For example, hiring managers can use hiring tools to create candidate pre-interview questions so candidates can opt-out if their qualifications do not match the job requirements.
Or design different types of evaluation based on the position profile: a general aptitude test to measure IQ, a personality test to gauge culture fit, or a skills assessment to measure practical skills critical to the role.
Conclusion
Measuring hiring manager satisfaction is essential in ensuring the effectiveness of your recruitment efforts. Hiring mistakes costs organizations time and money, and gaining feedback from hiring managers prevents that from happening. When hiring managers and HR are aligned, it makes the hiring process easier and more efficient.
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