How AI Can Build The Trust Between Recruiter and Hiring Manager

Even within the best-functioning organizations, it can be easy for a recruiter and a hiring manager to become misaligned. When a hiring process goes well — when the perfect new team member is found quickly, and to everyone’s satisfaction — there are no issues. But if a team is struggling to find the right candidate, it can often be because the lines of communication aren’t optimized.

When a role is sitting open, it can be easy for the hiring manager to look to the recruiter. The recruiter is meant to fully understand the demands of the role and the employer brand, build a pool of strong candidates, and evaluate these candidates within a consistent system. If any of these things aren’t happening, the hiring manager can start to worry.

Equally, when a company isn’t getting the hire it needs, it can be just as easy for the recruiter to look to the hiring manager. When a candidate is handed over by the recruiter, the hiring manager will go deeper with their analysis, and conduct the interview. If the candidates that the recruiter submits are consistently proving a bad fit, the recruiter can start to wonder whether the hiring manager is giving them sufficient information and details.

The truth is that there are almost always infefficenices on both sides. Recruiter and hiring manager alike are overworked, rushed, and unable to dedicate as much time as they’d like to assessing candidate suitability. This weakens the overall feedback loop.

This is where AI recruiting assistants like Wendy can be of such help.

When it comes to the area where the recruiter can struggle — effectively sourcing candidates — an AI sidekick can be a huge help. A bot like Wendy can process, store and communicate consistent information about a company and role. She can access a vast database of passive candidates, and conduct a wealth of screening conversations. With Wendy, recruitment reachout is rooted in a highly personalized network of data points that uncovers the best possible candidates by asking the perfect questions. This means that the hiring manager has a much better chance of receiving only the best possible candidates.

When Wendy effectively automates these top-of-funnel tasks, the recruiter is given more bandwidth. They lets them sharpen their lines of communication, ask hiring managers the right follow-up questions, take the time to truly understand role requirements.

At the same time, in the area where a hiring manager can struggle — setting the right parameters for the role, and asking the right questions in the interview — an AI recruiting assistant can lend a hand here too.

To function, Wendy requires job descriptions based on information and language that is unambiguous and quantified. When working with an AI recruiter, their human users need to compose listings in a semantic register that is precise and explicit, so an AI can grab the data points. Hiring managers often find that working in this way forces them to lose the buzzwords, and sharpen their descriptions of what they need. This lessens the chance that recruiters will bring them candidates that aren’t a good fit.

Also, when using an AI recruiting assistant, by the time a hiring manager is talking to the candidate, they have already been through a rigorous screening process. The complete record of this process is fully accessible. This means that the interview can be based on a firmer informational foundation, and the conversation can immediately go deeper. This hugely increases the chance of the perfect candidate being found. And if they aren’t being found, the hiring manager has the time and the room to give real feedback in a streamlined, frictionless manner.

As in all other partnerships, a recruiter and a hiring manager need their feedback loop calibrated. An effective AI partner can add bandwidth and clarity to both parties, building the trust and putting more great candidates in more perfect roles.