Recruiter vs Hiring Manager: What’s The Actual Difference?

When we talk about who is actually responsible for the hiring process, we are thinking of it in terms of the result of the process, not the whole process, right? Also, recruitment is a team-based process. The main drivers of the recruitment process are the hiring manager and recruiter. One manages the process, and the other manages the outcome of the process. They both have different roles and responsibilities in the recruitment process.

Therefore to understand the difference between recruiters and hiring managers, let’s first understand their duties in the recruitment process. 

What is a Recruiter? 

A recruiter is a skilled professional in the recruitment domain who Identifies, attracts and hires great employees for the organisation. The primary focus of the recruiter is to concentrate on talent acquisition, keep the process on track, and sync it with the recruitment goals hiring managers have provided. 

As per the provided open job criteria and parameters by the hiring manager, recruiters try to source the most suitable candidates, assess them thoroughly, and propose the best candidates to the hiring managers to review. 

Also, sometimes recruiters can be externally outsourced recruitment experts (part-time, contract, or permanent employees) hired by the organisation to conduct the hiring of executive, technical and managerial posts, often demanding the highest hiring skills and relevant work experience. Let’s understand the key duties of the recruiter in the talent acquisition process. 

Role of Recruiters in Recruiting Process

• Sourcing and attracting the right candidates 
• Advertise the job opening 
• Interacting with the applicants
• Prescreening the applicants 
• Conducting the phone interviews
• Reviewing resumes
• Present the most suitable/potential talent to the hiring managers 
• Scheduling interviews with hiring managers
• Present offer to the candidates 
• Negotiate the offer 
• Assist and coordinate with the hiring manager for the onboarding workflow

What is a Hiring Manager?

A hiring manager, also known as a recruitment manager, is a person looking to hire suitable candidates to fill an open position within the organisation. For example, if a director of the marketing department is looking for digital marketing executives, then he/she will directly report to a hiring manager about the requirement of the open position.

Moreover, the hiring manager manages and works with the team (recruiters, HR lead, sourcing team, and other core team members) effectively and smoothly run the recruitment workflow. In addition, the primary goal of the hiring manager is to manage and monitor the recruitment process, take crucial decisions, and, based on the recruitment analytics, improve and craft better recruitment workflow. 

Duties of a Hiring Manager

• Figure out the clear-cut requirement of the open jobs 
• Craft and guide an accurate job description for the advertisement 
• Efficiently manage the recruitment team and process 
• Interviewing the offered candidates by recruiters
• Collecting team feedback about the interviewed candidates 
• Decide the salary, benefits, and perks
• Negotiate the offer and deal breakers with the potential talent
• Approval of the offer letter 
• Onboard the new hires 
• Take a final decision on hired candidates
• What’s The Big Difference Between Recruiters and Hiring Managers?

The recruiter is responsible for the hiring process, whereas the hiring manager is responsible for the outcome of the recruitment process. Recruiters manage the hiring process, and the hiring managers make the final hiring decisions. Recruiters are responsible for the talent pool; on the other hand, hiring managers are responsible for selecting the candidates recruiters have added to the candidate pool database. 

Moreover, the hiring process becomes more efficient with a collaborative approach. So, it is the duty of the hiring manager to hold the result of the process. If bad hire happens, then it is the responsibility of the hiring manager to investigate the recruitment workflow and enhance the process with better hiring measures. Let’s now understand how recruiters and hiring managers can collaboratively work to make the hiring process better.

How can Recruiter and Hiring Manager work Collaboratively?

Indeed, hiring managers need to engage in every step of recruitment to effectively run the process and avoid a bad hire. Collaborative hiring is all about a team-based hiring process where every team member involves and works together to hire the most suitable talent within the organisation.  

Hence, it is incredibly important that the recruitment objectives and goals of recruiters and hiring managers should be aligned. Here are a few techniques on how recruitment managers and talent acquisition executives can work together. 

Select the right hiring technology

They must choose a hiring software that enables them to efficiently conduct the collaborative hiring approach. Following are some of the key features the Applicant Tracking System provides to conduct team-based hiring. 

• Recruit dashboard
• Personalised portals - client/candidate portals
• Synchronised team scheduling
• Structured hiring scheduling 
• Team notes 
• Video interview tool 
• Group hiring conversations
• Web and calendar integration
• Job approval workflow
• Employee referral portals

Develop a culture of Communication

In collaborative recruitment, every team member has to work closely with each other and the hiring manager. Therefore, constant communication is the key to a structured hiring process. The hiring manager must provide realistic and clear-cut expectations at every stage of the recruitment process and offer constructive feedback on the process. 

Constant communication keeps the recruiter and hiring manager up-to-date about the recruitment process, helps them tackle the current market challenges and the expectations of the applicants, and enables them to stay on top of the game in the fiercely competitive market of hiring top talent. Also, one thing the recruitment team must keep in mind is that open communication with potential candidates is vital, too. 

It’s a Wrap!

Finally, let’s glance at some of the things that the hiring manager and recruiter must take care of while conducting the hiring process. 

Recruiters must be mindful of how they present themselves, as they are the first representative who interacts with the candidates on behalf of the organisation. Hence, the first impression is incredibly important to influence your potential talent. Also, hiring managers must set realistic recruitment goals and select the right recruitment tools to efficiently run the recruitment workflow. 

Lastly, an organisation can only hire the best people if the recruiter and the hiring manager effectively and cooperatively work together. Indeed, Collaboration is the key to success.