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Job Hunting – Confessions of a Hiring Manager!!

by Paul Mullan on November 11th, 2009
10 Comments



Many jobseekers never take the time to look into the hiring manager’s world because they are too caught up in their own. Taking time to do this can give you a better understanding of the recruitment process,  help you market yourself and sell yourself more effectively at interview. Below are hiring manager answers to three questions that surprise many jobseekers.

Do you like recruiting? NO

Most hiring managers hate recruiting (in fact many HR Managers I speak with hate recruiting). Recruitment arises to solve a problem (staff member has just left) or to capitalise on an opportunity (yes some sectors are still growing). In either case the hiring manager is under pressure as they have their day job managing their function, covering for the lack of team resource and now they have to sift CV’s and interview. Most jobseekers send CVs quite asking hiring managers to unlock the Davinci Code. When you start helping hiring managers through this recruitment dilemma you will start seeing better results.

Do you spend more than 30 seconds reviewing a CV? NO – 20 seconds

Hiring managers are inundated with applications so are giving as little as 30 seconds to review each CV. To improve your CV application to interview ratio you need to master the art of the “out of body experience”. Ok don’t Google Paul McKenna just yet! What I mean is that you must start seeing the world from in the hiring manager’s eyes. Understand what they want and deliver this on your CV focusing on three key principles – content, information positional and visual appearance. You need to deliver an immediate IMPACT – pick me for interview!!

Do you want interviewees to perform well at interview? YES YES YES

So the king of puzzles managed to decode your CV and you get called for interview. The hiring manager has been very nice and selected you yet most jobseekers picture them as some cartoon villain – a dark and mysterious person trying to lure you into some sort of trap. Believe me when I tell you that when you get called for interview most hiring managers want you to do well. Wouldn’t their life be a lot easier if you turned out to be that person captured in that A4 typed document. When you get called for interview go there with confidence – be that person on the CV!!

I would love to hear your comments below. For those interested I will be at the RDS Career Fair on 12th November and doing a CV presentation at 12.30.



Category: HR and recruitment

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The Author:

Paul Mullan is an experienced career and outplacement professional with 14 years experience working within careers, outplacement and recruitment in the UK & Ireland. He is a former owner of Eden Recruitment and founder of career firm Measurability in 2006. Paul has delivered outplacement programmes for many leading organisations and ran graduate career workshops for leading third level institutions. He has worked with many individuals helping them define and achieve career goals through creative approaches to personal marketing and job hunting. Paul integrates traditional strategies with new Web 2.0 strategies to deliver optimum results. He is known for his up to date, creative and friendly approach to delivering career solutions. Paul is a recognised career professional regularly commenting on career related topics in the national media. He has acted as Career Doctor with Irish Independent and he is currently an online career expert with RecruitIreland. http://www.measurability.ie

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  • Niall Kelly

    Fair Play Paul,

    Very good feedback for job seekers and wish A) more HR managers wrote more articles helping job seekers to lift their game a bit more (the cv’s we see at salesjobs.ie from 20 year sales pro’s is quite shocking)

    B) perhaps more recruiters could write articles like this about recruitment from their perspective so that both job seekers and HR managers could all try and work some sort of simple system where everyone doesnt get their knickers in a twist – blame game etc….

  • Anonymous

    thanks Niall

  • Anonymous

    Thanks Paul, that short article has managed to subdue a lot of fears! It’s common sense but until read doesn’t sink in!!

  • Anonymous

    You are welcome Brian – Glad you found the post useful

  • http://www.smartsolutions.ie/blog/ Elaine Rogers

    I think it’s very important to ensure that call to actions are accounted for and by whom – and then followed up and reviewed. Certain meetings I attend; anything left undone stays on the agenda, others seem to just allow them to drop off as if they are not relevant at next meeting.

    As Niall says, selling should be about the client/customers’ needs, not what is being “sold” and this needs to be emphasized in the meetings. I always view sales people as almost self-employed as they have to manage their clients and their day. The difference is they have a Manager to answer to and that Manager should be as supportive and encouraging as possible.

    I have sat in Sales meetings where agents numbers have been projected on the wall for everyone to see – that can be degrading, and I always felt a 1-1 with the Manager would serve better to empower the agent and encourage them to change direction and be pro-active in trying new tactics.
    A little competition is healthy and I agree to perhaps split a group into 2, thereby not singling out one person and helps to forge camaraderie and healthier relationships amongst the team.

    Nice post Dave, thanks

  • Dave Thomas

    Elaine/Niall,
    Thanks for the feedback. I have always believed no matter whether it is sales, editorial, technology etc…. that meetings should be about results and not frequency. I have seen too many companies hold meeting after meeting just for the sake of meeting. Find a way to make meetings work, make them informative, and make them something workers want and not have to attend.

  • http://twitter.com/antonmccarthy Anton McCarthy

    Very pertinent points made around meetings. In a company I worked in previously, some novel approaches were to have everyone stand instead of sit during a meeting – focuses the mind and also has the inevitable effect of shortening meeting time! This can be especially effective when some meetings are held as much out of habit as anything else, or as an excuse to ‘catch up’, without a real need or benefit to actually having a meeting. 

  • Warren Rutherford

    Dave, great insights. As one who has sat in many meetings as a participant and a facilitator your suggestions brought several memorable smiles to my face.  In sales meetings I would expect a need to address the topics, pace, and agenda to the behavioral preferences of the sales people to help them become more engaged, i.e. your suggestion about making meetings fun and not being preoccupied with numbers. Great team management starts with understanding the what, why, and how of motivating your team.  Thanks for the great tips.

  • http://www.ukelectricalsupplies.com/ Electrical Supplies

    This is something I have come across in the past where a business sales manager is looking for work, but the wrong work and generating the incorrect level of sufficient business. I think a sales manager should also re-asses how the business he is representing can be found on the internet!

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