This may sound like a fine delineation, but I thought it was rather profound. One of our customers mentioned that he had people who could “do” certain tasks in a hiring process. However, these people were not able to provide “help” in the hiring process. That may sound like he is splitting hairs, but I find that point to be extremely important.
One of the struggles in assisting companies in their hiring process is that most companies, unless quite large, tend to hire on a need basis. This means they do not spend their entire time hiring. In fact, it often is pushed into the margins of their day. Other tasks take priority and the mundane work of sorting resumes, answering candidate questions and scheduling phone screens and interviews gets pushed to others.
If these important tasks get pushed to people who simply do the task, you run the risk of neutering the efficacy of your hiring process.
The key is to push these tasks to people who can help in the process. Not only do they complete the task, they bring extra value to it. In many small companies, this “help” can only come from the hiring manager. In larger companies, there are simply more options to choose from in terms of specific tasks in the process.
My point here is to highlight that hiring is a critical process…one that should not be completed by whomever is available to quickly check a task off of a list.