By: Don Kim

As a recruiter, it is your job to know your client company and find the best possible fit for their open position.  Delivering an excellent candidate to your client not only makes them happy, but it also increases your credibility as a competent recruiter.

So you’ve got a large candidate network to call on, excellent sourcing skills and the job posting from your client.  Think you are ready to dive into finding candidates?  Not quite.  To truly know what your client company needs from a candidate, you yourself have to get a personal feel of what the company is like.  The simplest path to getting to the heart of the company is through the hiring manager.  He is the one looking to fill the position, and he is the one who (supposedly) has a good feel for the needs of the company.  So how do you go about doing this?  We at HRMDirect have provided you with some helpful tips for getting the most out of your hiring manager – recruiter relationship.

1. Plan ahead

Before the recruiting process even starts, it may be helpful to have a meeting with you, the hiring manager and representatives from any other relevant departments involved with the hire.  Use this meeting to evaluate relevant factors to the hire such as the state of the current labor market, salary restriction and selling points of the position.  This is the time for everyone to collaborate and create a job posting that formulates the optimal candidate on paper.  In doing so, you take the first steps in avoiding any regret of a bad hire due to miscommunication between your client and you.

2. Maintain constant feedback

Constant communication between you and the hiring manager is key.  A weekly follow-up call should be sufficient to keep everyone in the loop about the hiring pipeline.  Use these calls to go over previous candidates and to keep each other abreast of new changes/factors involved with the new hire.

3. Ask why

As the recruiter, you should know exactly why the hiring manager liked or did not like a particular candidate.  Ask your hiring manager to clarify concrete reasons as to why a particular candidate was rejected or advanced to a second round.  The combined feedback you get from these responses is just as valuable as the job posting.

4. Experience first-hand what works

Meet with the top performers of your client company to see how their unique traits make them successful at that particular company.

5. Leverage your expertise

Chances are that you will have more interviewer experience than your hiring manager.  Offer your hiring manager some tips on how to conduct an effective interview.  Not only will this streamline the hiring process, but it will increase the hiring manager’s trust in you, which may lead to them giving you more helpful information towards hiring the best candidate. Inc.com offers a quiz to help hiring managers with their interview skills.

Don’t rush to find an acceptable candidate in the shortest time possible.  Do the necessary legwork of getting to know the company and the needs of the hiring manager.  Chances are that no one will remember how you took 2 extra weeks to deliver a top candidate, but they will remember how your poorly chosen candidate caused them to lose business.