How to Engage Your Entire Team in Hiring: A Blueprint for Collaborative Hiring

Tired of hiring headaches and communication breakdowns? Learn how to build a collaborative hiring process that engages your entire team.

In this episode of Spark Hire’s “Let’s Talk Hiring” webinar series, Anna Taylor, Director of Global Talent Acquisition at Semperis, shares her expert advice for fostering teamwork in talent acquisition.

Discover actionable strategies to:

• Break down silos between recruiters and hiring managers
• Streamline communication and avoid costly delays
• Mitigate bias and promote fair hiring practices
• Craft effective job descriptions through collaborative intake processes
• Get hiring managers invested and actively participating in the interview process
• Improve candidate experience and build stronger teams

Whether your biggest challenge is engaging hiring managers, maintaining an efficient process, or leveling up your entire team’s involvement in recruitment, this webinar provides practical tips and real-world insights to help solve these hiring challenges.

Hello. Welcome to Let’s Talk Hiring, another edition. We are super excited to have Anna Taylor here from Semperis. For those of you who are listening to the Speed to Hire podcast, Anna is not a stranger.

We’ve had conversations with Heather in the past and enjoyed it so much. We wanted her back and she was kind enough to provide us that time. So, Anna, really appreciate that. We’re gonna jump into introductions here in a second but before we do that, as we’re doing those, let us know from where you’re tuning in from.

So, we’ll put those in the chat and we can, check on that. And then but I’m gonna turn it over to you to you, Anna. Can you give us a little, background, really quick background yourself, some context for for those that are viewing, and, and then we can jump into our topic today.

Sure. Yeah. Thank you for having me back again. I’m Anna Taylor, and I’m the director of global talent acquisition for Semprys. Semprys is a series c cybersecurity software vendor, I’ve and been with the company for about three and a half years now with a small TA team. And I’m based in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Wow. Probably get lots of invites in this Oh, yeah. Up until now. That starts to get hot.

Well, outstanding. Well, one, so a couple of things. So we we’ve been, talking about this collaboration topic for quite a while. But actually, we were recently at Sherm Talent, and one of the things that we asked folks that were stopping by our booth was just some core challenges that we had. And and we gave each of them a sticker and, you know, as in these conversations.

And I guess we weren’t really surprised by this, but it was overwhelmingly around collaboration with hiring managers as you can see by the the number of stickers in the lower right hand corner. So that sparked, you know, further pursuit of that and and kinda getting under the hood. And, Anna has a ton of experience there, so we’re excited over there. But before we dive in, we’re also gonna just want your your feedback here real quick.

So, I pop up a poll here real quick that we ran earlier on LinkedIn, but would love your perspective here. So primary challenges you’re experiencing as it relates to less than collaborative hiring process. You can put a number or just the, the the the piece itself. Number one, delays in communication.

Number two, increased risk of bias. Three, ineffective interview process. Four, negative candidate experience. And five, more work created for me.

So what, just you can just jump in there, and then we can talk through that. But, as we we get some answers in here, Anna, would love your perspective. Which one of these jumps out for you?

Yeah. As you were reading through those, I was almost gonna say, I think we missed, putting all of the above on But there as an I think I’m ranking myself here with, like, maybe a three, four, five is one of those has to be my top.

Yeah. Interesting. The the the more work created for me is almost that all of the above. Right? It’s just like you really have to do that.

Yeah. We I put this on my LinkedIn. I saw a lot of number ones delays in communication.

But of course number five is I think Gary you’ve used you’ve used this quote before which is you get what you subsidize. Right? And so a lot of times when you have that poor collaboration with hiring managers and you step into that void to do the work, you’ve somewhat set the expectation for the next time you’re working with that hiring manager that you will step into that void and subsidize that work. So it’s kind of this vicious cycle you can find yourself in.

Absolutely. Very true.

Okay. So well, so as we work through this, let’s let’s talk about obviously, these are all results of things that we’re experiencing on the ground. So maybe we kind of tear down, like, what are what do we see in a process? What are the contributing factors?

A lot of times, you know, we we talk about anything we’re trying to solve. It’s like mostly we we reflect on the symptoms, but we have to go back to what’s created the symptom in the first place, which is really close to the problem. So on in your experience, like, where does this where does that start? Where do we start to see, this collaboration issue really start to come to bear?

Yeah. I I really feel like the collaboration issue can come to bear even when you’re not directly working with that hiring manager. Right? So a lot of what I think I wanna try and get across today to the teams here is to make sure that you have a really active relationship with the hiring managers, whether you’re actually recruiting for them or not.

Right? Because then once you already have developed that trust and that connection and relationship, once you get into your recruiting cycle, you’ll already have set such a good tone, you know, for how you’re gonna work together. You’re not starting from scratch. You’re not, you know, digging your way out of maybe a relationship that was contentious or or negative in the beginning.

So hopefully, that answers the question a little bit, but I really think that it’s the work you do outside of the actual search that is gonna contribute best to, you know, a successful collaboration once you’re really in it.

Yeah. Related to that, on a CuriShare experience where, you know, hiring managers, we have varying degrees of their own hiring experience. We have varying degrees of how often they hire, whether in the past or at our existing company. As you think about building that relationship, it’s kind of a spectrum, right? You’ve got some who you’re probably working with a lot because the nature of the roles for which you’re hiring, they’re just, you know, you’re with them a lot or maybe their team is growing rapidly. And in other cases, you may work with them once over a two or three year period because it’s a smaller team or it’s more stable or or maybe it’s not growing. So how do you how do you, you know, work inside that spectrum?

Yeah. I think that’s a great question. I mean, there are definitely hiring managers who are it’s kind of twofold what you asked. Right?

Like, who are more experienced. So for those, you can sort of jump right in. You expect them already to know the basics of what not to ask, what to do when they have a candidate ask them a certain question and things like that. And then there are others where the recruiters do have to do a little bit more handholding and training.

Right? But, again, kind of it all comes down to if you have a really good outside of search, you know, process and relationship built up with those people already, you should hopefully know what level you’re playing with once you get into the search. Right? And then you can sort through a lot of that in the intake call.

It sounded like also one of your other questions was kind of how do I maintain that with a hiring manager who I maybe engage with only once or twice per year versus the one that I see every week because they’re they have, like, evergreen you know, obviously, engineering. I bet any recruiters on the, you know, webinar today are probably tons of engineering recruiting that just happens all the time for most tech companies. Right? So you’re very connected with your engineering recruiters, your engineering hiring managers, but maybe other departments like customer success or, you know, more GNA, you’re seeing some of these hiring managers once, twice a year.

It’s it’s little check ins. Like, just this morning, I actually, you know, texted on Teams, one of my hiring managers, because I had just helped him build a team just to say, you know, hey. Oh, how’s Carlos doing? You know, like, how’s that going?

Because I was just curious. I said, you know, how’s it going? Did did what we do you know, did it end up successful? And little touch points, you know, of that relationship outside of the search is what I try to have my team maintain.

Yeah. I mean, that’s definitely important to maintain that relationship. But also, there’s an element of rust too. Like you said, there’s gonna be hiring managers with varying levels of experience.

And maybe there was somebody that was doing a lot of hiring so they got pretty experienced but that was twelve months ago and then you know hiring slowed for their team and now they have to pick it back up again. You might expect them to be where they’ve been twelve months ago but the reality is they haven’t had any reps in twelve months. So you have to really, like you said, during the intake, kinda get a sense of where they’re at. One of the things I think would be interesting to discuss is your take on the importance of hiring managers and their participation in the process, specifically from the angle and this is really twofold.

One is a lot of companies are facing this right now where their HR or their TA team is being asked to do more with less resources, and therefore, they have a reliance on hiring managers to help, you know, fill in some of the blanks within the hiring process and pick up some of the slack. From your perspective, though, and from our previous conversation at Semprys, you guys were tasked with doing just a ton of hiring after raising, I think, was a series d funding. And so I’m sure that created some pressure and a requirement for the hiring managers to be involved. Can you speak a little bit to the importance of that?

Yeah. So I think, you’re asking, like, the the hiring manager’s relationship, right, and the importance that kind of the recruiting team places on their responsibilities in the search, I do think that it has to be a standard. You know? It has to be also scalable, the standard that you create.

So in my opinion, for my team, what we established during that kind of period of chaos it was 2022, but, you know, it really hasn’t slowed down very much since then was that we established that we have this kind of skeletal framework, right, that just this is what it looks like. The recruiter is always gonna be on video for, you know, x number of minutes depending on the the location, the region, the the team. And then we’re gonna try and limit it to, you know, three, maybe four interviews tops with your professional interviewing team. These are the questions that we’re gonna ask you right out the gate, you know, so that we’re all on the same page.

So we tried to have, and we try always to have a very, kind of brief and, you know, simple to follow process where we know what our responsibility in it is, and then we’re very clear with the hiring managers as to what we expect from them. Right? And what we mainly expect from them is to just clearly articulate your need. And then after that, to be available.

You know? I think that there’s a lot of recruiters that struggle with hiring managers who will say, oh, I have no time. Can only interview, like, once this week.

If it’s not a priority for you, how can it be a priority for me? Right? I’m I’m hiring for you. So we’re very clear and open about that.

Hopefully, that kind of answers your question. Right? So I just I think that that’s the most important thing is to be really clear upfront with, like, this is the framework and, like, this is what we are gonna do as a recruiting team. And then as the hiring managers, like, this is gonna be your part, And I’m going to help you through it. But that’s my expectation of you.

Yep. That makes sense.

It’s funny. It’s so counterintuitive. But it’s what I heard at Sherm Talent when we flashed that image up at the beginning of this livestream when everybody was saying their biggest challenge was collaborating with hiring managers. And the number one thing they said is hiring managers are just always saying, don’t have time.

And that’s in terms of getting interview feedback or just meeting with the recruiter to do an intake. It’s I don’t have time. And it’s so counterintuitive because at the end of the day, you’re trying to help the hiring manager hire for a position for their team that’s gonna have a direct impact on their success. So from your perspective, and I’m working with hiring managers, how do you flip that mindset?

How do you get them to be thinking about it from that perspective of being super invested in the process because, ultimately, this person’s gonna have the biggest impact on me, the hiring manager?

Yeah. I mean, we try to flush that out in the intake step. That’s it is really important. And then there are some hiring managers that you sort of have to, like, drag them along the process with you. It totally happens. Here at Semprys, it actually happens pretty rarely. You know, our hiring managers, I think, are also, like, really committed to the recruiting process and to having that kind of recruitment mindset.

Sometimes it comes from top down. Right? If that team lead isn’t getting pressure from their department head to fill the vacancy, then maybe they don’t, you know, really care that much about filling the vacancy really urgently. So it really there’s so many different areas in the ecosystem that it can go wrong, if you don’t have everyone holding each other accountable.

Yeah. That top down thing is huge. I know from experience, a previous company which I worked, Part of, especially if it was a critical position, part of your OKRs for the quarter were getting that position filled, and it was your responsibility to do it, not recruiting’s responsibility. And and so and they were great partners for us, but if you had it, you know, they and the recruiting team did a great job upfront of walking through, like, let’s be realistic about what this timeline is gonna look like so that you realize that a thirteen week quarter is actually not very long when you’re trying to hire for a critical position. And if your OKR is set for that, I’m like, every day counts. So and you both mentioned actually a few times this this intake concept. Right?

Which I think a lot of people take for granted. But, Anna, it’d be great to hear from you. Like, what what does that look like?

Sounds like it’s foundational. It’s expectation setting. It’s understanding the role. It’s, you know, being able to communicate the process.

Right. How has that evolved for you over the last few years? And, you know, what what would you pass on as a recommendation for that?

Yeah. I think actually the thing that has evolved for us in the intake step is actually it has become more standardized. So, in the beginning, it was, again, we were so busy and we had so many roles that I would often I have experienced recruiters on my team, so I really would let them run it how they wanted to. And I still let them run the intake meeting how they want to.

But what we ended up realizing was we were asking a lot of the same questions. We’re doing things similarly. So we kind of came together, I think it was about a year ago or so, brainstormed, and created actually an intake question document, which I know a lot of companies have, but we are still very startup y. So we created that intake document that has a whole list of all the suggested questions that you should be going through and should be getting responses on so that you completely understand the profile and that you’ve completely set the scene for the hiring manager.

And we give that to the hiring manager in advance. So, you know, one thing that is gonna really weaken your intake process is if you surprise the hiring manager on that call. Right? So, like, one thing about our hiring managers is they are very busy.

You have to find time with them, and then they have to find time for interviewing. Right? So every minute that you spend with them and and ask them for their time so that we can successfully recruit, you want it to be as efficient as possible. So by sharing those questions in advance, you’re going to really set them up for success because hopefully you have a really responsible hiring manager on the other side of this who is going to review those questions and be prepared for you.

And you’re not figuring out the profile together on the call.

Yep. Yep. Absolutely. And then so as that as you’re walking through the profile, that’s another aspect as well is everything is about the job description. Do you have a process for how you, you know, the get beyond just the typical requirements to what is it we’re really trying to accomplish here? And what is critical to success, not just today, but six, twelve, twenty four months from now in that role?

You know, I’m sure that back to the point of experienced managers, some of those who are experienced have been through it and realize, yeah, I didn’t do that very well the first time. You know, those that are less experienced may have not been through that yet.

So, how do you gently get to the right answer there?

Yeah. Great question. So I do think a lot of our questions I mentioned this on the podcast with Josh. Like, we’ve talked a little bit about Lou Adler’s performance based hiring model.

Right? And I think a lot of the questions are almost me trying to educate or my team trying to educate the hiring manager on thinking that way. So performance based hiring in terms of you know, a major question we ask is, if I find you this perfect person, right, you’re listening to these skills, you’re telling me these requirements on the job description and the title that you want. If I find this person, what have they accomplished for you in six months?

Or, you know, in one year when you’re doing their annual performance review, what are you hoping you’re discussing? And, you know, what goals are you setting for them, and how are you measuring them? So I’m asking them about the actual day to day of the job. I’m not just reviewing the list of skills on the JD. And another thing, which I don’t know if all companies do it this way, but this is how we do it, we don’t post the job description until the intake call is done, and we feel 100% confident about it. So often, the hiring managers actually will submit a rec, you know, a rec request to us. They’ll have kind of a a skeletal, you know, job description on there, and then the recruiter and the hiring manager work through that job description and all these intake questions to really refine it and make sure that we’re happy with, you know, what’s actually gonna get posted and be candidate facing.

So I don’t know.

Again, I’m I’m not super I haven’t worked in huge organizations, but I think in startups, that’s typically how it’s done as Well, I think it’s helpful because, you know, as Josh was saying earlier before we started, many of the customers that we serve are, you know, small to medium sized businesses that are professional services that are ultra fit.

The people are critical to that. And sometimes that, you know, the the classic case of we’re so busy working in the process, we don’t slow down to work on the process Yeah. To make the process better. And I think sometimes those those, those intake processes, to your point of not just pushing a rec live because you got it approved by finance, but actually almost having that intake process as a definition of done. Like, doesn’t go live until we’ve got all parties agreeing on what it is we’re looking for and the details around that, how we’re gonna hire that person, who’s gonna be involved. Yeah. That’s really powerful.

Yeah. In some ways I’m sorry. Go ahead, Anna.

I was just gonna say, think also your time to hire. Right? Recruiters on the call, like, think about your time to hire. If you rush to posting that that ad and you tell the team or you tell finance, like, okay. I posted it. We’re gonna start working on it, but you didn’t even have the intake call yet, you’re actually hurting, you know, your your metric.

Yep. Yeah. And I think, you know, in some ways, like you just said, you have to protect your process and the metrics that you’re aiming to achieve, but you’re also protecting the hiring manager, you know, ultimately, so they get the best outcome. I think there’s this inclination that I have this open role.

I got it approved by finance. Push it live. Push it live. Let’s start getting candidates, and we’ll figure everything else out later.

But that doesn’t actually end up speeding anything up because the reality of what happens is you start getting candidates, then you don’t know what to do with them. So then it takes you longer to review the resumes in the first place. Then you get to the interview or screening phases. You don’t know what questions you’re asking.

You have to align on that. So it actually dragged it out further than, like, just taking the day to iron things out before the process starts so we can run the rest of the process more smoothly. I love to bet know, I know we’re talking about the intake, and this is great. And, you know, I definitely wanna get into some of the questions that you ask, and you you hinted at some of them from Lou Adler’s framework as well.

But I wanna back up a little bit. So we’re talking about the intake, which is really the start of your collaboration with the hiring manager in a process.

You alluded to earlier in this conversation, though, the importance of building relationships and connecting with hiring managers outside of the process because that would build the foundation for running a good process. So whether it’s thinking back to your time at the beginning of Sempress or if you’re just, you know, giving a, hypothetical example for people on the call, like, think about starting in an organization, you’re brand new, or you have a bunch of brand new hiring managers. Like Yeah. What do you do? Where do you start?

Yeah. So for me, where I started with Semprys was, kind of an an intro. Right? So I I took the first maybe thirty, forty five days, and I put time on people’s calendars.

I just showed up on their calendars. They didn’t know who I was yet, but I explained to them, I was brought here. I’m a new director of TA. This is kind of what I want to accomplish.

I had a few questions that I asked them. Most of them were very high level. Just tell me a little bit about your team. Tell me a little bit about your background.

And I wanted to understand the structure. How many people report to you? Very simple basic questions.

And I made a little introduction to them. And I said, you know, thank you so much for for sharing that information with me. This is super helpful. And I love using, like, OneNote, for example, for my notetaker and stuff like that. So I every department has a tab, and I still, I think, have the notes from those meetings, that little roadshow I did.

And that just kind of set the scene. And I think any good leader, recruiting or otherwise, any good leader, when you come into a new company, that’s really what you’re doing. You’re trying to evaluate what’s already there. Who do I need to meet, who are the key players, and getting to know everybody before you start to insert any changes or decisions or what you were actually hired to do.

Yep. That’s great. And in terms of decisions and the things and changes you want to make as part of coming into a new role, where do we start with that in terms of getting buy in? You know, it’s probably not at, hey.

I’m gonna change the process. I’m gonna first tell a hiring manager about it when they’re ready to hire for a role because as we just talked about, they’re anxious about hiring for that role, and that might actually give you pushback if you’re trying to, like, force that on them at that moment in time. So when you have these changes, what’s the rollout like? Like, do you do presentations?

Are you meeting with certain champions throughout the organization? How do you handle that?

Yeah. I mean, first, I usually put something together that you know, whether it’s a a present like, a basic presentation with, like, PowerPoints or or some kind of documentation. And I like to talk to people live.

Of course, we like to communicate via email and Teams and chat and use all the electronics. But speaking to people live one on one is the best method I’ve always found for many things. And so before I rolled it all out, what I finally kind of decided to do, it went through many iterations. So I had some members of the HR team that I was able to bounce ideas off of, and they gave me feedback, and we kind of brainstormed together.

And And then there were one or two hiring managers that I felt more comfortable with who I got their input too before I rolled it out to the wider team. And then what you said is exactly what I did. I booked a few times. We’re an international company, so I gave people a few time options so that people could adjust their schedules to join.

And over the course of about two weeks with maybe, like, four sessions I think I had scheduled, I had meetings with the hiring managers. I told them that if we are hiring for you this year, you are required to attend one of the four sessions so that I will hire for you.

And so, obviously, that put a little pressure on on everyone to attend. And we we just went through it. We went through the deck. I let them ask their questions, and we set the tone for the year. And that was in 2022.

And did you have any maybe there were some hiring managers where there’s some pushback on the new processes or the change?

You know, it’s a good question. Like, there were definitely a few hiring managers that I had to go through it with them a few extra times, more like one on one, and they had maybe a lot of questions. Some people like to get into the weeds, you know, or some people have a lot of questions. They really wanna know specifics.

Some hiring managers, actually were very even agency, you know, like, agency friendly. Like, they really wanted me to just use agencies rather than try my process first and stuff. So there were a few things to work through. But for the most part, we were in this huge, exciting stage of growth.

And so I think that the hiring managers were just happy to have someone help guide them through it.

Yeah. And a partner, right? I think the key point you made there was you took the time with the people that needed more information or wanted to get into the weeds and the details of the process. You took the time, and that shows that you care, and that shows that you care about their success. Yeah. And I think that goes a long way in helping to build a relationship before you actually have to work with them on an actual position.

Gary, did you wanna talk anything more about that before I wanted to hop back over to the intake and kinda get into some of the the questions that should Yeah. During that process.

Let’s do I was gonna ask actually and probably makes sense to do the intake first, but once you get into the process itself, let’s talk through how do we navigate a difficult hiring manager. Like, how how do we bring them into the process? But we’ll hold that until we get through this part of it.

I can’t wait.

So alright. So we talked about the intake. You know, it’s a requirement for you guys before the job can even go live to meet with the hiring manager. You referenced a few questions that you would be asking related to, you know, what this person’s future performance would look like. What are some of the other questions you’re asking to uncover help the hiring manager realize what they actually need and what they’re looking for?

Yeah. So sometimes I’ll also ask the hiring manager about their team. Even though I might know their team already and maybe I’ve hired with them before, I’ll ask them some questions in real time about, let’s say there’s one person on your team, like, who would you wanna clone? Think about this title. We hire a lot of solution architects. We hire a lot of software engineers. Often you are repeating the same profile.

So at that time of search, I’ll ask, you know, who on your team right now do you just wish that we could just find another one of them? You know? And that also gives us a lot of insight, because we can look back on how that interview process went. We can look back at that person’s profile. You know, what questions were we asking then?

Is something different now? And it’s interesting to see how sometimes those can change. Like maybe in January that they wanted this person and now in June, they’re like, oh, wait, but you hired me this person in March. And like, now I wanna clone that person.

You know? So it can happen sometimes. That can give you a lot of insight. And then one of the other questions that I also really like to ask too is like, what’s the what’s kind of the career trajectory that you expect this person to be able to fall into as well?

Right? And that kind of aligns with the performance questions that I ask where, what are you expecting from them at six months? What are you expecting them for one year? But that’s actually a candidate friendly question.

I wanna be able to answer the candidate’s questions in the interview process as to, you know, the expectation the hiring manager has for, like, growth in the role and things. Because that’s been super common lately. I don’t know if all recruiters are experiencing that, over the last few months, but I’m getting asked a lot lately. Like, what’s the growth?

What’s the professional development? You know? So I think it’s important to understand from hiring managers how promotion prone they are, if that makes sense. Like, do they like to, like, build up their team?

Are they planning to get a team lead maybe someday soon where, like, if I find them the right person, that person can get an internal promotion? You know? Just understand more about the structure of the team and, like, the style of leader that they are.

Yeah. That makes sense. And I think you also hit on an important point about, you know, the type of person or the type of candidate they’re looking for could change. Like, six months ago, they wanted to clone person a.

But six months later, now they want to clone person b because things within the business have changed or things within their team have changed or the market. And now there’s new dynamics at play, and so maybe person b is now, you know, the person they’d rather clone than person a. And so I think a lot of times you mentioned, you know, companies are hiring for the same role over and over again or, you know, at certain points throughout the year, a solution architect. Let’s say you’re hiring every six months or whatever it is.

It’s very easy to just defer back to the kickoff we did, and it’s like, alright. Let’s skip. We’re gonna hire for the same thing, same role, same job ad. Let’s go.

But that’s why it’s like, no. Reset. Like, it’s been six months. Things have definitely changed within the business and within the market.

Let’s make sure we’re still aligned on what we actually need for your team.

Yeah. I think that’s interesting. Actually, Gary is a CRO. Right? So, like, it’s you said something earlier too.

Sales, I think sometimes that happens in the sales profile. Like, that’s where I’ve seen that attitude from a hiring manager most often, right, is that they think, well, it’s just the same sales profile that we always hire every single time. Like, this is our uniform, like, sales profile.

But you should revisit it, you know, every few months. Like, just kinda check-in. Like, is this still what we’re seeing success you know, is successful?

Whereas on engineering and some other technical roles, there are little nuances, but I I’ve seen it a lot in sales. I don’t know if you have, Gary, but I see it a lot in sales.

Yeah. So that when you mentioned that, I was gonna say you you you actually laced in there quietly, but it was a big one about then what’s changed? What’s different. I’m like, that’s really the issue is it it is a great place I found to start the conversation, but then just asking the questions of why.

What was it? Is it the environment? Was it the training? Is it circumstance? Is it the time period that they just happen to be working in?

Is it the book of business that they were getting? Because whatever person we bring in, we’re pretty sure we’re not gonna replicate all of those variables. Right? It is gonna be so which one of those actually contributed to success?

And those are really much more difficult questions to answer. So I’m sure that all goes back to that intake process, which is let’s let you start there, but then really go into what contributed to that success.

And then Josh is maybe where you’re going next, which is and then how do you prioritize those contributors?

Exactly. I think, realistically, when you’re looking at your team, there might be one person. Yes. If we can clone them, you know, 10 times over, the team would be in a very good place. But I imagine also a lot of managers look at their team and say, if I could have these three traits or competencies from this person plus these two from this person plus these five from this person, that’s, like, the perfect candidate. And so they come to you with all these things that they need.

And then the reality is it’s like, alright. I don’t know if we’re gonna be able to find that person. Maybe we will, but let’s prioritize these things because you’ve given me a list of 10 things.

If we find somebody with seven of these, is that still a really good candidate? If we find somebody that’s really good with three or four of these things and maybe okay with these other three or four, is that still a good candidate? So how do you help a hiring manager prioritize, and how do you calibrate with them on what good looks like and ensuring that they’re not just giving you a laundry list of things, and it’s like, find me this unicorn that doesn’t exist?

Yeah. I think it’s really interesting you said that because there’s so many different variables there. Right? I mean, if you have a hiring manager who does say things like that, who I wanna clone this person, or I want these traits, these traits, and these traits altogether in one person, at least they’re actually giving you something pretty concrete.

Right? So let’s give them a pat on the back for that. But at the same time, you do have to, in your conversation, like you said, prioritize. Right?

So that’s just asking more questions. So what are the initial projects you’re gonna have this person on? And then kind of through that discussion, can see like, okay, so these three skills over here are really gonna be the initially most important. And then what skills can you teach?

We always ask that as well. So Sembris has specific product set and kind of tool that we look for and skill that we look for. But what area of that can you teach? So if I can find you someone with that, amazing.

But can you teach them how to do XYZ thing? So that’s, I think, a really important conversation. And it almost does make it more of a strategic partnership conversation, right? Because you’re kind of also encouraging the manager to think about how they, as a mentor and coach, can build their team and build upon the skills.

So it becomes like a wider conversation. But that’s how I would prioritize. Like, what things are deal breakers that you expect somebody to just come in and know? And then what things that, like, if they maybe have touched it before, you can help them expand on their knowledge.

Yeah. And related to that, we got a comment, I’ll show it here from and forgive me if it’s Lakesh, around this failure to plan. And we’re bantering in the chat about, you know, a failure to plan is a plan to fail, but re resetting those expectations right up front, I thought that was captured that pretty well.

Yeah. Gary, those are the best punchiest quotes.

I know. I’m full of them. It’s like, it’s it must be the coaching yeah. The coach in me or something.

Alright. Well, Anno, let’s say you’ve done the intake. You’ve done the kickoff. The job is live. Hiring process is now underway. What’s the feedback loop calibration? How often are you talking with hire managers?

Can I let me interject there real quick, because there’s one one thing that I often see is the disconnect back to your point about since about about salespeople in particular is, okay? So we have the job description. We have, you know, what success looks like and how we got there and so on and so forth. And then we we jump immediately to the process versus, okay, how are we going to assess for those?

And in what point in the process are we going to assess for those? And what is the most appropriate way to assess for those? Do you interject that piece of the process and work that with them? Do you share that with hiring managers?

Or is that just something that that over the years, just because of the the types of roles you’re hiring for, you have a pretty good rhythm in place already?

Yeah. Great question. I do think that we have a pretty good rhythm in place already because one thing that we’re really lucky at here in Semprys is our retention and how we have actually been working with the same hiring managers for quite some time now. So even new hiring managers that might come on board to certain teams, we are actually able to tell them, you know, like, this is the interview process for that type of position.

Like presales engineers, for example, like, we have a very specific process, and it has always worked really well for us. They have this demo. They have this assignment. You know, like, just works amazingly.

So we’ve already established that. But obviously, like, back when we first started in 2022 working with these hiring teams, we had to start somewhere. So a lot of that is more us, in recruiting being educated by by the the hiring hiring manager manager on how they’re gonna assess the skill. We can make recommendations.

Right? But that’s not our expertise. You know? Like, I I wouldn’t know how to how to check that, you know, a software engineer is strong enough at c sharp.

It’s not my expertise. I look for the hiring managers to tell me how they plan to assess it.

Got it.

So we discuss it openly. We kinda develop that plan, and then we move forward with it.

We’re very honest. You know, like I said in the beginning, we’re very honest about what our part is in in the search and what we’re able to assess and and kinda look for for them, and then it it’s really up to them on the other items that they need to assess for.

Right. Right.

Then you’re working through but I do leave it I empower them to, like, decide how they wanna Right.

Assess that skill.

But, yeah, it sounds like getting that up front because then you can think about, okay. Well, that throws a little wrench in the process that we had originally designed, and how do we help facilitate that for you so that it’s timely, it’s a good experience for the candidate?

You know, how does that fit into the other, you know, steps? Is that a go, no go?

Right. That’s the partnership piece. I’ve had people decide all of a sudden in the middle of a process, like, you know what? I really think I need an assignment now.

And I’m like, well, but the first 10 candidates that you talked to, you know, we didn’t give them an assignment.

So that’s also, like, an unfair hiring practice. We can’t just change it in the middle, then everyone’s gonna have to get the assignment to make sure that it’s a fair and equal hiring process. Right? So that’s where we come in, and we help them on the compliance front and how things really should be for the positive candidate experience. But ultimately, we’re going to try our best to work in their desired method of assessment Yep. With the reason.

Got it. Got it. That’s great. Okay. All right, back to Josh’s question.

No, Gary. I love that you asked it because I was myself jumping straight to the process. So I’m glad we took a step back to think about, how to assess candidates for the things that you’re looking for. And I think, you know, just going off your last point, Anna, one of the things that does come up mid process are changes, wrenches in the system, hiring manager thinks they need to do something else.

How do you work with them to get really clear about, like, the problem they’re actually trying to solve? Like, a hiring manager says, we need an assignment now. It’s like, okay. Well, what’s the underlying thing they’re trying to get to that we’re not solving for right now in our process? How do you help them figure that out?

Yeah. I think one thing that sometimes recruiting teams are scared of is pausing a search.

It it is hard, you know, to do all that work upfront, build a pipeline, talk to candidates, and do all those things. And then suddenly, the hiring manager changes their mind, and you’re not aligned. And you’re like, oh my god. What do I do with all these candidates that I just, like, acquired? Right?

Please have no fear of pausing a search, you know, is like what I would say to recruiters. Like, it’s gonna be more beneficial at the end, you know? Like we said, do the work upfront, but if you didn’t, it’s okay. Like you can, you know, take the time and just do it in the middle.

You know? So I would say, like, to have no fear to pause the search and just kinda start fresh with the hiring manager. And, look, you already have, that time or or those candidates that you’ve built, right, like that that kind candidate pipeline that you built up that you can bring into the conversation. These are the profiles that I’ve found so far.

It seems like we’re not hitting what you wanted. And you try to see, is it because of the way the hiring manager has assessing those candidates, or was it the profile that you set in the beginning? And you kind of revisit and try to find the pain points together. What I don’t like is when a recruiting team tries to either put all the accountability or, like, blame, I hate that word, but, like, blame on the hiring managers, lack of decision or lack of direction, right, because it is a two way street.

Like, take accountability for what area of the process you may have, you know, had be weaker that you even got to that point. And, again, like I said, like, be be hold yourself accountable, pause, and just start over again. It’s not a big deal.

Yeah. That’s really interesting because when you said that, the the salesperson in me is reminded of, you know, the management of a deal through a pipeline. Yes. Like, it just because if the if the buyer got to no decision or paused or for whatever reason, like, let’s not blame entirely the buyer. Did we help facilitate that process? So if you think about kind of deal management, it’s like really, there’s probably signals that you can see that we’re we’re we probably haven’t defined this role right or maybe things have shifted in the department or, like, things are starting to go off the rails here.

Let’s not wait till the end to pause that but be able to step in proactively.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, look, it’s really hard, like you said, to pause a search and reset and think about where do we go from here because, again, the hiring manager is anxious. They wanna get this person on their team.

The team needs the person. Maybe the team’s feeling burned out because they don’t have this person on team. There’s all these factors at play, but the reality is that the hiring process isn’t concrete. Right?

It’s important to be flexible and adapt based on what you’re seeing in the market and based on what’s flowing through the process. Pouring concrete is hiring the wrong person.

Right? Obviously, it’s a reversible decision, but nobody wants to go down that path. It’s really, really costly toward the organization. So it’s better to reset and level on what do we actually need versus just continue down the path because we’re getting anxious about the fact that we haven’t hired anybody yet. Right. So I think that’s a really important point that you make. So what does like, what are the checkpoints that you have in place to make sure that you have the proper collaboration so you can identify where maybe change is needed earlier, you know, sooner than later?

Yeah. So I think for me, sometimes I do get a little bit far from the search unless it’s a search that I’m doing myself. And so I make sure that I’m really communicating with my team on a weekly basis. We have weekly team meetings and then weekly one on ones where I’m really getting, you know, updates on kind of how things are going.

I also can, you know, see the activity, that’s happening because I I see how busy they are, right, and all the interviews that are happening. So I’m trying to keep a pulse throughout the search on if the hiring managers are having a lot of interviews. Right? So are you having a lot of candidates to set up with the hiring managers, or are we stuck in that, you know, front end or that in that top of funnel for, like, a little bit too long?

And when we do get stuck in top of funnel for a little bit too long and the hiring managers aren’t you know, those steps aren’t getting to, that’s where you kind of know, you know, in your checkpoint. That’s a really key checkpoint.

If they’re not passing, the recruiter step, like, we’re obviously not looking for the right thing.

Yep.

So I think that’s, like, one of the first checkpoints. And then, again, pass through rates, are super important. So when they do get to the next professional interview, are they not passing the first step? So I think pass through rates is a really great data point that sometimes people don’t always look at. But I would say that’s my biggest checkpoint is like, is there activity?

I love that you brought it back to numbers. Obviously, you’re in a leadership position, so you’re overseeing, you know, your team that’s looking across all these different roles. So you have to look for the indicators that things are going well or things are off the track. And so you mentioned number of interviews. I mean, just as an early indicator that things are happening, we’re moving people through the process, but also pass through rate, not only at the recruiter screen, but also I imagine the higher hiring manager interview as well because it’s one thing for them to have a lot of interviews, but if they’re giving you one stars and all the interviews are having, nobody’s happy, and we have motion without progress.

Yep. Exactly.

And so sorry. Go ahead, Gary.

Yeah. I was just gonna say, so we go through that, and, Josh, jump in if you’re gonna head the same direction, but you ever run into a point where you go through all these things, you have a good process, you’ve been really good on your intake process, you understand the job requirements, how you’re gonna assess, You get to the very end and you feel like, you know, we’ve got a really good fit here. And then you get the, I wanna see three more candidates.

Yeah.

It’s I I’m very lucky that I don’t have that problem. I don’t wanna jinx myself. Like, I need to knock on something.

Sorry if we just did that to you.

I don’t wanna put that into the universe, guys. So I’m very lucky that here at Semprys, like, we don’t always have that problem. And one of the reasons is because exactly of what we’re talking about here today. Right? So my recruiting team has done a really good job of gaining the trust of the hiring managers and building that relationship that we are very focused on quality over quantity. And so typically, when they get to that last step, they’ve been communicating the whole entire time.

And if they would have wanted more candidates, they would have told us sooner in the process. Does that make sense? So, like, I don’t think a hiring manager we’re not typically getting there. It’s happened, like, one or two times, But, typically, you would know already at, like, maybe step two or something. You wouldn’t get all the way to the final interview with someone unless that department had really, like, wanted to hire that person.

Yep. Yep. It’s such a just reinforces the importance of that intake process and just making that such a foundation so that you don’t inadvertently end up in those positions down the road. And now you’ve burned a lot of candidates a lot of time and energy for one, but then, yeah, obviously, a lot of candidates who have been through the process as well.

I’ve heard those stories. I really feel for the recruiting teams that have managers that do that. But I think that even in that case, you could have set that upfront. So I’ve even had managers where we discuss like, okay, we’re gonna do the first steps.

You know, the recruiter, myself, let’s say, and you, like, we’re gonna do the first steps and then let’s narrow it down together, just you and I, to three people. And those are the three people that are gonna move to RVP, right? So that like, when we even get to the final stage, it’s the people we wanna hire. So if you set that up upfront, maybe at these other companies, you know that it’s someone that wants, you know, tons of candidates and they get FOMO and stuff like that, then you probably upfront, you should know you’re gonna need to bring that hiring manager more volume.

Yep. Patrick brought up a really good example or situation here, and that is a discrepancy in expected compensation.

So, you know, so talk through a little bit. There’s a lot you know, everybody’s got a perspective and opinion on what we should do or not do inside of a hiring process around compensation. But Yeah. You know, to avoid those situations where you get to the eleventh hour and there’s just a wildly diverging situation, whether it’s between the the, hiring manager and the candidate, between you and the candidate. But how do you how do you navigate that to make sure that everybody’s on the same plane as you progress through the process?

Yeah. I mean, I feel like a broken record, but, like, compensation has to be talked about early in the beginning of the process. And the recruiters need to be asking the candidates their expectations and being clear with them about the budget for the role.

It’s also been very rare for us that we’re getting to the final stage, and it’s, like, complete shock. The only time that I have seen that happen was in situations where maybe the candidate kind of came in thinking one thing or wanting one thing. And then potentially throughout the interview process, maybe they got a raise where they were currently working. And so now they like want more.

Or throughout the interview process, they learned more about the role and they feel that it was more responsibilities than they originally, you know, had told me their salary expectations for. And so they’re kind of like, well, if you want me to go to the office or you want me to do x y z, I’ll expect it to be, you know, $10,000 more or whatever. Got it.

In all of the cases, it has been, in my opinion, very fair, when the situation has happened.

But you should always be talking about compensation early. Nobody wants to waste their time.

Right. Yep. And you need to talk about that with hiring managers. That’s where it starts.

Right? Hiring manager comes to you with all these things they want, and you need to use the resources you have available to you to figure out if what they’re looking for is actually possible given the budget that you actually have for this position. And if there’s a misalignment there, we have to correct that there. That’s the first step.

They describe the candidate, and you’re going through it, and you’re like, yeah. Your budget’s $1.20, and you just described a $300,000 candidate.

Describe, like, a principal software engineer in San Francisco. Like, go go.

Right. Right.

Yeah. Yep. Found success, from a comp standpoint of actually putting it on the application of, like, giving a very tight range of what it is and asking on the application if it’s aligned with their expectations. So that’s a good way just, like, before they even take an intro call with somebody on the team.

It’s a good way to set expectations. You could put in the job description, and you should, of course. But, you know, if it’s at the bottom or mixed in with all the other content, who knows if they’re gonna see it? So the more places you can put this information, help candidates make decision, ultimately, it’s gonna save you and also your hiring managers who you’re trying to make sure you set up with quality interviews.

It’s gonna save, you know, them a lot of time as well.

And a better experience for the candidate too.

Yep.

Yep. For sure. And there’s a lot of companies who are slow to the salary transparency, you know, kinda circus right now. But, if you do it in your sourcing, like, you can if you’re if you’re not the type of company that has it in all of your posts like, I’ll be honest, we don’t have it in every single job posting if it’s not a state that requires it.

But you can put it in your sourcing notes. You can talk about all the other benefits and perks that you give, and you should talk about it in that recruiter call. You know? Maybe then they’re wasting only thirty minutes of their time to have a screening with you, right, to, like, have the discussion rather than putting them through the whole interview process.

So there’s ways around it if you are not at a company that is being fully salary transparent at the moment.

Yeah. And that’s a good point too, not to deviate too much, but candidates are coming in from all these different channels where you might be sourcing them from LinkedIn, and they didn’t go through your application. Like I talked about, we have the questionnaire application, but if they’re a referral or recruiter source, and they don’t go through that process. So we need to make sure we have those checks along the way. So candidates are all getting the same information so they make a good decision, and, ultimately, you know, you’re setting up hiring managers where it’s a good investment of their time where that person actually has an opportunity to become a member of their team realistically.

Yeah. Yeah.

The, one we so we asked the question earlier. It seems like the perfect place for it is difficult hiring manager. So we’re in the middle of a process. And probably a lot of times, it’s not out of obstinance. It’s just the tyranny of the now. Like, something comes up and they’re really busy and and you’ve had conversations about getting involved. But when you run into these situations where it’s misaligned expectations or inability to deliver or, you know, communication issues or whatever, how how have you typically found the best ways to confront that or attack that?

Yeah. I mean, I think we have all, you know, have plenty of stories about difficult hiring managers or or, you know, difficult searches that we’ve gone through. And I really think that most of those situations can be solved by hopping on a video chat or, like, getting on the phone call. Right?

So often and I’ve coached my team in this too that I feel really strongly that a text message, a Teams or Slack or whatever, an email, anything that’s in writing like that where the tone can be misconstrued or you might not be getting all the context that a person is really trying to express to you, if that exchange is going on for more than two or three times, it’s time to stop typing and to get on the phone. So that’s my first advice in general to everybody is to like, it’s time to stop typing. It’s time to get on the phone, reconnect, you know, as people and talk about, like, what’s going on and what you think the pain points are.

Now if you’re gonna jump on the call, be ready and have your bullet points of like why you’re taking this call and what you need to talk about, what you feel is going wrong, and hold yourself accountable too. So don’t just get on the call because you’re trying to tell the hiring manager how difficult they are. Right? So you’re trying to tell the hiring manager what you see isn’t working.

And if there’s something going on, like, some of it could be your part two. Right? So as a recruiter, like, we need to make sure that we’re not, like I said before, just blaming the hiring manager. Oh, they never give me time.

They they are looking for a unicorn in something that doesn’t exist. Like, it’s all their fault. It’s never all their fault. There’s always something we could be doing to get it back on track.

It’s a really good call out.

Yeah. So really be thoughtful about that. And then if you’re gonna get on that call, be thoughtful about what you’re about to say. Right?

Because you can either help the relationship or hurt it even more Yeah. With with that phone call. So that’s really important. And I think the other thing to get it back on track is to have some data behind it.

Be really honest with the hiring manager. This is how these last few weeks have been going. This is what I’m seeing.

Use names. Use whatever, however you’re referring to candidates. We interviewed x person in this place.

You gave them a two. I gave them a five. How could that be? And have the conversation about it and get it back on track. But hopefully that answers your question. I really think it’s all about just that communication again, like we talked about in Absolutely.

Yeah. I’m sorry to interrupt you. I think this idea, the way you talked about, a, having that conversation, but, b, being prepared is coming to it, seeking to understand. The reality is you only have one one perspective.

There’s two sides to every board. There’s another quote for you, Josh. And the the idea, I think, coming there with humility, which is this this we we this isn’t working, but here’s my understanding of what’s happened to date. Like, here’s what I know.

I want to understand what you see and what what’s different here, and then together, we can figure out how to solve this. Yeah. Obviously, you’re in a much better spot that way versus, like, this isn’t working, and you’re the problem.

Yes. And sometimes the hiring managers will have a lot to tell you. Right? Because we can be really honest with ourselves too as recruiters.

Like, we might be very familiar with the market and what’s happening and everything, but a lot of these hiring managers, many of the ones that I speak to as well are maybe Microsoft MVPs. They’re in these blogs. They’re in these groups. They’re in Discord.

Right? And they also have a really good pulse on the market. And they might have input, you know, or opinions about why the search is not working that we don’t even know about because we are not in the, you know, engineering group or the active directory expert group and seeing what everyone’s chatting about. Yep.

I want to pull up this question here. I think it’s getting pulled up. Did you guys see it?

Quick show. I don’t see anything yet.

Okay. Well, there’s a question Okay. From Priya. She asked, how would you approach there we go. How would you approach the situation if it is taking longer to hire the right talent and the hiring manager is anxious about how long it’s taking?

It’s amazing because I have actually two situations right now that I will tell you about, real real life opportunities and situations that are happening right now for my team. So one is a senior security software engineer that’s been really hard, to find. It’s a very, very specific kind of niche skill set. It’s a new project, things like that.

Right? But the recruiter and the hiring manager that are working on it have worked together for such a long time now that they just know. Like, the hiring manager has literally said to me, well, if she can’t find it, I don’t know who can. Right?

That’s how much faith he has in her. And that just shows how important that relationship is. He really trusts her work and that she’s trying so hard. And so they’re having interviews that trickle in.

So maybe it’s once a week, maybe it’s every other week or something. She’s finding the gem of the candidate that fits it, and he’s being super patient.

Then you have the other the flip side of things. This is for, you know, a totally different kind of team and and role, and you have the hiring manager who’s, like, panicking, and you get the emails late at night. And they’re sending you, like, the LinkedIn profiles of, like, 20 people because they’re like, Look, all these profiles are great. Can you contact all of them? Know, and they’re just like going off the rails.

I have that going on right now too, right? Because you have to understand, like, they’re really stressed. Like, maybe their team is really under, you know, under resourced right now. And they’re struggling and they’re trying to, you know, help their team feel calm and they really need this person and stuff. So it’s, again, like letting them have that, let them experience it. It’s similar to I’m a mom, right? So it’s similar to letting your kid feel their feelings.

Let them have that. Let them have that stress and have that communication, that open line of communication for you because when they go quiet is when you should be worried.

If they’re not sharing those concerns with you, you haven’t built that connection. You haven’t. So let them feel those feelings and and share those things with you, and then reassure them with the data. You know, come back to them with what you are doing.

This is what your sourcing looks like. This is what your in mail response percentage is. This is what I’m seeing in the market and why I think it’s taking a long time. Why do you think it’s taking a long time?

Right? And then you have that conversation about it, and you discuss what you can adjust.

With the team that I have that happening with right now, they did get on a call, they talked about it, and it was not for lack of activity at all. Like, there was a pipeline. They just weren’t finding what they wanted. Like, it just you know, there’s this, like, lack of that person, like, in the market right now in terms of what they’re finding. They changed the job description, you know, up. They they kind of adjusted all the requirements that they wanted to list. They lowered the years of experience.

They looked in they’re starting to look in different countries. So I do think I’m confident that we’re now going to find it, but that was the perfect situation of, I see that you’re stressed. I’m going to let you have, you know, those feelings. And I’m going to tell you, I think that we need to pause and let’s start fresh so that I can make you feel 100% confident that we’re all on the same page.

Yeah. I can appreciate your perspective there. I really like it, actually, which is a lot of times people have a noisy hiring manager. And it’s like, oh they’re being so annoying.

They’re constantly pinging me. But it’s really a good problem to have because that means you have somebody that cares and they want to find the right person and they’re you know active in wanting to do that and so you have to harness that energy for good. And that’s where, to your point, it’s like, alright. I can you know, I’m gonna let you feel what you’re gonna feel, but now let’s work together and figure out what do we need to do to find this person for you so you can divert that energy into something that’s productive for the hiring team.

Exactly. Don’t forget the other side of that could be that that person, if you haven’t built up that trust where they’re sharing their frustration with you, they’re going to share their frustration with someone else. And it could be your CEO. It could be your head of TA. It could be your VP of HR, right?

You don’t want that to happen. We’re all adults here. You know, you want the conversation to be to be directly with you. So always just make make sure that you’re giving them that space to be anxious if they have to.

Bria, there’s and maybe you can jump in the chat because there is a lot of nuance that you started to hit hit on, Anna, which I thought was really helpful, which is, you know, a situation that is take I’ll put it up here again. Situation that is taking longer to hire the right talent and hiring managers anxious about it, and you started to hit on those things. Well, why is it taking longer? Was it was it do we have the wrong expectations going in?

Is it now we’re realizing that the market has shifted? Maybe our comp is off. Maybe the job description relative to that is wrong. Maybe there’s other aspects of the job.

So I think that’s it’s hard to solve that anxious ness if you don’t break it down to what can we actually do do something about. And to me, it all comes back to that very beginning at the intake process is you set that strong foundation, and now you’ve got all the variables that you have to work with that if things and when they not if, but when they start going differently than everybody planned, like, how do you adapt to that? So, Priya, hopefully, that was helpful. And if you got any questions, please jump in there.

One thing, you know, I know we’ve only got a couple of minutes left here on time. So let’s kinda go to the end of the process now. So you’ve gone through the process with the hiring manager. We just talked about a question where the hiring manager gets anxious because we’re not finding the person they’re looking for.

Now let’s explore the flip side. You’re at the end of the process. The t a team, the recruiter is getting anxious because the hiring manager isn’t making a decision, or they’re taking too long to make that decision, or they’re waffling back and forth, or they’re having FOMA and wanna see more candidates. How do you help coach them through that at the end of the process so you don’t lose somebody that you’re about to potentially make an offer to because you’re just taking too long to get back to them?

Yeah. So the debrief conversation is super important at that time. Right? Because sometimes certain hiring managers, they’re almost scared to make the decision.

So if you get on the debrief call and you maybe involve everybody that’s been in the interview process so let’s say it’s the direct hiring manager and a team lead and one other person. Right? So you get all of you guys together on the call, And the TA’s role in that conversation is almost like a mediator. So you’re not really giving your opinion.

You’re allowing the others to kind of discuss their view and feedback and evaluations of each candidate so that the hiring manager can listen and hear. And sometimes it’ll really make them a lot more confident about making their decision. Positive to hire the candidate or negative to decline the candidate, right? Either way, hearing others’ opinions or feedback about a person can really help that hiring manager decide and feel more confident in their decision.

And so as TA, again, like I said, you’re you’re kinda the mediator. You’re reflecting back what they’re saying. And you’re listening and you’re saying, okay, I heard you say that you felt that person was very strong, but I heard Gary say that he felt like this person had a weak spot here.

What do you think about that? Tell me more. Right? Very open ended letting them come to the decision.

Love it. Alright. One minute left. I’ve got the big loaded question for you.

Okay.

For everybody that’s listening and that wants to make an impact on the collaboration with their hiring managers, We talk about a lot of different ideas. What do you think is, like, low hanging fruit? What can people walk away from right now and just immediately thrust themselves into to start driving better relationships with their hiring managers?

Yeah. I would say the immediate and the easiest thing is take all those intake questions and kinda all those ideas you have in your head and allow your hiring managers to be prepared coming in. Make sure you’re helping them to set the tone. Put it into, like, a little one pager PDF or document, attach it to the, you know, invites that you send them or shoot a little email over to some of the hiring managers and just say like, hey, these are some of the things I’m going to ask you to be ready for when we kick off the search.

And hopefully you’re just going to set the tone for some of the people.

Awesome.

Yes. And to that point, we actually, we’re we’re put have put together and continue to build out a set of resources that we call higher education. So we get a lot of the play on words. Well done, team.

I’ll put a link to that in the chat, and we’ll also include it in the recording as we send it out, but that should be really helpful. But, Anna, we are so thankful that you spent time with us. Thanks. We we told you from the beginning, like, whatever outline we have, we’re just gonna riff on it.

We did.

So I could talk about this all day. I really loved it. Thank you so much, guys.

You rocked it. Thank you so much. That was awesome.

Thank you.

Yeah. So stick around for a minute, but we’ll, for the rest of everybody here, really appreciate you joining us, taking time out of your day until our next episode of Let’s Talk Hiring. We’ll see you then. Thank you.

See you.