Hiring Managers
It all starts with the hiring manager. They have an opening, and they need to find some candidates.
The hiring manager will create a job description, and send it to a recruiter. In a larger organization, HR will play a big part in this.
They’re also very involved at the end. They have the final say as to whether or not a candidate is selected. Don’t blame the recruiter - they didn’t have anything to do with it.
The problem with hiring managers: For many, it’s something they do once or twice a year, if that often. They’re already overworked, and interviewing adds even more.
The Most Important Person in the Process
When people talk about hiring, the focus is often on recruiters, automated systems, and resume keywords. It’s easy to get caught up in the mechanics of the process and forget who the final decision-maker is.
The recruiter isn’t buying. The automated system isn’t buying.
The hiring manager is the one you have to convince. They are the ultimate customer, and everything in the process is theoretically designed to serve them. But just like any group of customers, they aren’t all the same.
There is no single template for a hiring manager. They aren’t a monolithic entity that follows a standard procedure. They’re individuals, and each one has a unique set of problems they are trying to solve.
Thinking that all hiring managers want the same thing is a common mistake. They all have different needs, and they all have different requirements for the same job title. A “Senior Software Engineer” at one company will be doing vastly different work from one at another company, even within the same industry.
The job description is often just a generic starting point provided by HR. The manager’s real needs are rarely captured completely.
It’s About Filling Gaps
A hiring manager isn’t just trying to hire a “Python Developer”. They are trying to fill a specific gap on their team. That gap has multiple dimensions.
- Technical Gaps: The team might have three ace backend developers but no one who really understands modern front-end development. Or maybe they have a lot of generalists and need a specialist who can dive deep into database performance tuning. The job title doesn’t tell you this.
- Personal Gaps: The team could be full of quiet, heads-down coders. The manager might be looking for someone who is more vocal and can help lead design discussions. Conversely, a team with too many strong personalities might need someone who is a calm and steady implementer.
The manager is looking for a piece that fits the specific puzzle of their existing team. You may or may not be that piece.
They Were Already Busy
Here’s something to remember: hiring isn’t the manager’s primary job. It is an extra task piled on top of their regular duties.
And why are they hiring in the first place? Because the team is short-handed. This means the manager is likely already overworked, covering for the missing person while also managing the rest of the team’s workload.
Going through resumes, preparing for interviews, conducting those interviews, and gathering feedback takes a lot of time. This is time they don’t really have. This is why communication can be slow and the process can seem to drag on. They are squeezing it in between everything else that is already a fire drill.
Many Don’t Have Much Experience Hiring
On top of being busy, many hiring managers aren’t even experts at hiring. It’s a skill, and like any other skill, it requires practice to get good at it. For many, it’s not something they do often.
It’s something they might do once or twice a year, if that. They don’t have a refined process. They don’t have a set of questions that have been honed over dozens of interviews. They’re often starting from scratch each time.
Some may have only just become a manager. In that case, their only real experience with the hiring process is from the other side of the table - as a candidate. They’re likely to just repeat what they’ve seen before, whether it was effective or not. They’re figuring it out as they go, just like everyone else.
