A Corporate Recruiter’s Happy Place

You close your eyes and imagine the following…

Your in-box notification pops up. It’s a “you’ve been identified as the Lead Recruiter on the following requisition” subject line of an email you just received. It includes a link to the talent management system. Right after receiving that email you get a second email notification. You check the new message in your in-box and realize it’s invite from the same hiring manager that initiated the aforementioned requisition. It’s for a 30 minute meeting with the subject line “discuss position” with a location. It’s not just a message, it’s a meting invite for the next day.

You meet the hiring manager and your head explodes by what transpires…

“Hi Sean. Glad you could make it. I want to talk about the new position in my area. I initiated a new position. Since I initiated the requisition I’ll let you know that I already ran this position by the HR Business Partner, my <insert appropriate authority’s title here>, it’s new headcount and I knew that had to be done ahead of time.  Just before the meeting I sent you a copy of the approval sent down by the VP’s admin so you have that.”  Nice.

The hiring manager continues.

“It’s open because of demand in our area. I’ll get into that in a second. Anyways, here’s what I’d like to see happen…”

I brace for impact.

“I know that I have 3 other people currently in this position and know their salaries. I’d like this new person to be within this range. I think it’s a tough skill set so I’m ok with going over and we may need to offer up a signing bonus. ”

I check the grade and reply, “sounds reasonable to me.”

Manager, “Excellent. I’m in a bit of a hurry and want to make sure this moves along. We currently don’t have any internal people that reside in my area that I would consider for the position. They’re simply not familiar with the platform and at the level we need. We don’t have a contractor in the position and I’m thinking we’d have to find someone outside the org. Again, I know it’s a unique skill set so I’m open to relocation and have considered the cost. I have an email to my VP to approve the relocation package and will get that approval over to you as soon as they reply.”

Thinking to myself…okay, is this for real?

“You know my team supports <insert business area here>. We have an exciting project that is in the works. This person will be involved in this project <insert in what capacity here>. It’s a great opportunity to really run with this implementation and afterwards we’ll need this person to do ‘x,y,z’. The team is dynamic – work hard, play hard. They have nerf guns, go to lunch together, but not everyone does that which is fine. It’s a friendly group. Every 6 months we have a team building exercise, The last one was…<insert activity here>. Two members of the group will mid level, solid in their competency. The other one is very junior and is learning a lot. This new person would be a mentor for the staff, so I’d want to know what their experience is mentoring junior staff.”

Very nice.

“They will be sitting in our area on the 3rd floor. The top 3 skills I absolutely need this person be proficient in are <1….2…3…>. If they have 2 of them and have something alternative to that missing skill, that’s fine. Three nice-to-haves are <1…2…3…>. Lets see, good so far?”

Solid! How about process?

“I was getting to that. I’d like you to review the resume, do phone screen, knock out red flags and nail down salary – the usual. Here are two additional questions I’d like to have you pose to them…. Route the info to me. I promise to get back to you by end of the same day I get their info, if you get me their info before noon. Otherwise, I’ll get back to you before 11am the next day. You know what. Why don’t you just schedule the person for face to face. Why waste time with phone interview and the routing of resume? I trust you. We can change this if things don’t pan out. I’ve blocked off my calendar every week Monday morning, Wednesday afternoon, and Friday morning, each for a couple hours. Feel free to just set them up during that time. If I do have a meeting I’ll get someone else to go in my place. This position is priority.

The interview team will be myself and IT Manager Johnson for first hour, and then IT Manager Smith and Tech Person Jones for the 2nd hour. I’ve already informed them and they’ve agreed to help out with the interviews. I want to meet after the second interview for 30 minutes to discuss feedback and details of an offer. Do you think this is a good plan?”

Eyes staring wildly, mouth agape.

“Let me send this to you. It’s a copy of the job posting I’ve customized. You know how our job descriptions are not a good reflection of what the jobs entail. Once you post it, I’d like to have the link to the posting so I can send it out to my peers and team so they can put out there to their networks. Here are three places on the web that are good resources to find these people. Not sure if they have a place to post jobs, but if they do go ahead and do that. As long as it’s a reasonable cost – less than $500 for 30-60 days, charge it to my area – 163245. Here are 4 companies in the area that use this technology, just an fyi.”

Sounds good. You’re really serious about this.

“I don’t want to futz around and draw this out. I know you’ve mentioned how tough it is to find highly qualified IT people, so when we find one I want to make it happen.”

I’ll go back to my desk and get this posted and get you an update on progress.

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