Recruitment Management Matrix - Four elements of successful recruitment delivery.

I was asked recently what do I think a good recruitment manager looks like.  I was about to say 5’8”, brown hair, glasses and a goatee bear but realised it was a serious question.  So I went for a more generic answer that summed up over 10 years of recruitment experience and came up with the Recruitment Manager Matrix.

This RMM is made up of four key elements, listed below.  If you get all four right you will be able to enable your team to understand, manage and deliver on all your recruitment stakeholder’s requirements.  Assuming they don’t all think it’s unicorn or purple squirrel season.  All four are interlinked, interdependent & equally important to ensure successful internal & external delivery.

So here it is.  My take on how to successfully manage a recruitment team.

1. Stakeholder Engagement

I start here.  Given my RPO experience, I take an account management approach and go speak to the stakeholders first and ask them lots of questions to identify their key priorities; what do then need and by when.  Then ask why so I can understand the business drivers behind their recruitment requirements.  Is it business growth?  New business development?  A contract win?  When I have all this it’s about the application of the company’s talent strategy and strategic workforce planning. (A topic for a future post…)

2. Team Motivation

 Armed with the information above, I can then direct my team so they can be very delivery focused.  Giving them clear goals & priorities ensures they won’t be working on useless or un productive tasks, thus enabling them to do what is required.  I either let them use their existing recruitment expertise or train them up (better yet, enable them to train each other!)  Especially on how to source those passive candidates.  They don’t have to all be immediate hires; with that understanding of the key business drivers your team can build up pools of future talent.  However, don’t underestimate those essential ATS skills.  Like me, you may have team members who love recruitment but hate recruitment systems.  However, the more they use it the better they get at it. (Honest!)

3. Candidate Management

By this stage my team should be able to effectively manage the candidates.  They know the remit of the role and what the hiring manager wants so they can set clear expectations.  These days many candidates want instant feedback or what I call ‘application appreciation’; many candidates want to be thanked just for even applying!  However, that feedback can also be considered candidate engagement.  It’s possible for a good ATS to be used as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool to send regular updates, or ad-hoc ones if things are moving a bit slowly.  All this builds up to candidate conversion, from ad to application, process to selection, offer to, ultimately, hire.

4. Management Information

This isn’t about gathering up more data than you can shake a virtual stick at and just offering your stakeholders a massive data dump.  For me, it’s about providing the right data, at the right time, in the right way. Tailor and/or filter it to their needs, summarise it and provide insights & analysis.  Don’t just give them data; tell them what it means.  You should also use the data to Proactively manage, not just passively track.  Any fool can tell you how many candidates applied, were interviewed and offered after the event but a good recruiter can forecast much of this.  That way you can tell if you actually have candidate shortfalls or bottle necks in your process and therefore what roles or candidates require that extra bit of attention.  Always remember the difference between Qualitative & Quantitative data - If all is going well, your stakeholders will just want the numbers.  Not so well, and they’ll want details. Lots of details…

You then report this back to your stakeholders on progress and/or results, re-confirm priorities or pick up the next assignment, get your team on it, hire the right candidates and report back again in the endless cycle we call recruitment.  Or Life, depending on how much you love your job!

So there it is, my take on successful recruitment delivery.  I’d love to receive any thoughts, comments or feedback.