Comments on: Eight traits of good hiring managers

By: Tim R

Tim R — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 00:52:50 +0000

I’m a little late to the party here (just discovered your blog). But, I would say that nearly all of these points should be seen even more broadly: The Eight Traits of Good Managers (hiring or otherwise). I am particularly biased towards managers who believe in hiring people smarter than themselves, planning for succession and, most importantly, sharing the credit for the team’s work.

By: gopalshenoy

gopalshenoy — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:45:00 +0000

In my definition “hiring manager” is the one to whom the candidate would report to. Given this, I will not outsource recruiting of full time employees to anyone if I am the hiring manager. Recruiters can get me resumes, but the final decision will be made by me – I have to make decisions such as does this candidate fill the role I need to fill? how does he culturally fit into the organization? etc. – decisions that recruiters cannot make for me.

Even if I am hiring a consultant, I will do due diligence, because even though the downside of having to let go a consultant is lesser, enough damage can be done by the consultant if he/she is not a right fit. Plus having to start the hiring process again is added cost in terms of money and time.

By: markcarter

markcarter — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:21:48 +0000

That was a good read. Well said. You both have good points.

By: NA Hill

NA Hill — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:15:10 +0000

This is interesting, there was actually just an entry posted on How To Be A Good Product Manager about how hiring managers and product managers interact. Must be in the air.

You make a lot of good points but it seems like there’s a fundamental flaw in your positioning, namely that the “hiring” manager is not always the one who will be managing the team members after the fact (sometimes project/product managers are also hiring managers, but not always). It seems like you use them interchangeably here.

Really, I think a hiring manager lives and dies by his hiring decisions (obviously); you make the point that good ones hire team members that are smarter than them. The best ones also delegate the task of hiring to those more equipped; some of the greatest hiring managers I’ve worked with have used recruiters or recruiting sites like dayak exclusively. This effectively mitigates the amount of loss when a situation such as in your #8 comes up (good recruiting resources have some kind of “probation” period). But, they also weren’t afraid to admit when they (or the recruiter) had made an error and to do what had to be done to fix it.

But, from there on out the hiring manager may or may not be involved in a particular team members’ success. It’s funny because some of the best hiring managers I’ve known (the ones that got the best candidates) were somewhat crappy project managers. They could find talent, but they could never seem to point it in the right direction…