Clients? Hiring Manager v HR v Internal Recruiter the ultimate battle!

Sorry about the heading, I am not a violent guy, but the visuals in my head at this idea, made it impossible not to write. So... Let's get ready to Rum ball!

Reading over a number of these posts over the last few weeks, sparked a question in my head. I am the Recruitment Manager for a Software Company in Australia, and we have grown a lot in the last few years, recruiting all internally, through myself and my team. I crossed over to the Internal side after a moderately successful career as an Agency Recruiter. As an internal function I have come up against the Hiring Manager and HR and their ideals versus mine... always interesting, and again all different perspectives on the same issue. I"ll admit I am pretty tough on Agency people that call into me (more so after the 10th call of the day).

So what is my discussion point? or point in general???? Which is the best/preferred (or most hated) area to have as a client in an organisation, the Hiring Manager, the HR people or an Internal Recruiter.

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Permalink Reply by Dean Lockett on November 7, 2008 at 8:56am

Hi Dan,
I usually give the HR department first shot at working with me, I'm always proactively marketing a candidate to their needs, then if I get rejection, I move right up the line to the HM. There always seems to be some friction between the groups in certain companies. The HM's don't feel they are getting the quality or responses to their needs so they go outside the circle, especially to someone that just called them with a viable candidate to consider. I've found that when the HM lets me in the door and we begin the relationship/process of moving forward, they then send me back to HR to negotiate the paperwork of a fee/guar. HR may not like it, but they usually realize that I gave them first shot before going forward so it's hard for HR to tell the HM they are not going to consider their needs at that point. I do have some very good relationships with HR staff and respect their turf, but these are the folks that have great relationships to HM's and are respected for the work they do. These HR people are also the ones driving the turnaround on candidates, getting good feedback as to why/why not and closure on the openings with the HM's.
I'm probably not answering your question, but I do have to summarize that sometimes it varies. I will say at this point, that the HM is the person that is probably 3 out of 5 times the one we work with when we get into a client, but I wouldn't say one is preferred or most hated out of the overall picture. (Ask Steve Levy, he might have an opinion on this question ;-) Right Steve?

Gday Mate!