# 002 Conducting Kickoff Meeting to Fill a Job Position Faster — Part 2

This article is the extension of my previous post on ‘How to Conduct a Kickoff Meeting'.

Part 1 covered the one side of the kickoff meeting with the hiring managers about reaching out to the appropriate candidates, whereas this second part elaborates on how to create confidence in the hiring managers to expedite the job closures.

Now, let’s talk about the final three actionable strategies below which will allow you to build trust and rapport with your hiring managers for an open requisition during the kickoff meeting.

Strategy #4 Do homework before attending the meeting:

This is the time to showcase your expertise about the talent market and the required skill set. If the skill set in need is niche, Google the skill and get some basic ideas about it. Moreover, you may talk to other employees on the team about the open position’s prerequisites.

1.1 Analyze Talent Market: Focus your preliminary research on candidates, such as their availability and salary range on the market.

For instance, let your hiring manager know that, in today’s marketplace, for a certain niche skill, they won’t find a project manager at $125K or an IIM Ahmedabad graduate for 5-6 LPA. Also, research how much the competitors are paying for a similar job.

1.2 Calibrate Resumes: Start off sourcing and screening some resumes on the requisition you are going to work on. Assess them with your hiring manager to better understand if your search is aligned with what is required or if you need to refine it further.

Strategy #5 Educate hiring managers on below pointers:

2.1 Three Parameters of Hiring (Speed/Quality/Budget): Let your hiring manager know it’s difficult to get a purple squirrel or a unicorn for the open positions. You cannot get all three—speed and quality and budget in a candidate if the position demands are to fill it in two weeks to two months’ time. Be realistic by letting them know it will take time to find a candidate of top quality and within cost.

For instance, if you get a candidate in budget and in a shorter duration of time, they may not be the top-quality hire. If you get a top-quality candidate faster, you may have to pay for it. If you find somebody in your cost and premium quality, it may take a while to fill a position. Therefore, having a trade-off with the hiring manager to effectively hire the best available candidate for a given position is of importance.

Ask your hiring manager to open the requisition well ahead of time, maybe 4-6 months in advance, which maybe rare, especially in the case of service-based companies, where they don’t have much visibility for upcoming businesses.

2.2 Always discuss salary budget separately with the hiring manager. Never talk about the salary that can be offered to candidates in front of the interviewers. This may go in some different direction where interviewers will start comparing their salaries with the salaries of potential candidates. Avoid getting into such unwanted discussions.

2.3 Advise hiring manager to recruit diverse talents: Most studies have shown that the hiring manager or the interviewers bias comes in the final decision on hiring, or not hiring a candidate. Some of the common traits are looking for a particular type of skills or personality traits in candidates, seeking local candidates, also opting for candidates from the same industry, and shortlisting candidates with certain required years’ of experience, or candidates who mirror themselves.

These all restrict your talent pool. The narrower the talent pool, the fewer chances you have to find the top-quality candidates. On the other hand, the larger talent pool allows people from different walks of life to bring in different thoughts of looking at things on the team. A huge plus!

2.4 Conduct alignment or debrief meetings for all the stakeholders: This is essential so as all the interviewers are on the same page before conducting the interview. You should be a part of a debrief meeting that gives you more insights which you might have not discussed or noticed during the kickoff meeting.

For a better outcome, the interviewers should be given interview training, but, if that is not possible, then a thorough briefing from the hiring manager is a must. This lets the interviewers know clearly what they are going to assess the candidate on; they will know the kind of questions to ask and how to evaluate them.

2.5 Timely and detailed feedback from interviewers is important : As on-demand candidates don’t last long in the market, it is essential to set expectations for your interviewers and the hiring managers to give resume screening feedback within 24 hours, and interview feedback within 24 - 48 hrs. Also, share your interview evaluation form with them to provide detailed and specific feedback. Read my earlier article on the importance of feedback to candidates for more insights.

2.6 Have a weekly sync up meeting: Take the lead to schedule a weekly meeting with the hiring manager and the interviewers to share the progress of your work. This brings everyone on the same page and avoids escalations and micromanagement from the hiring manager.

Discuss any challenges that you are facing and ask the interviewers their feedback on the interviews they have conducted. They may guide you if you need to change your search approach. This really helps to close the position faster, as you will get feedback as things happen. Don’t operate in reactive mode; be proactive in taking such actions.

2.7 Encourage hiring managers and the interviewers to engage via LinkedIn: Many studies have shown that hiring managers who are involved in sourcing and engaging with the potential candidates via LinkedIn get the top talents. Almost all the candidates want to hear directly from the hiring managers or interviewers about their experience with the company, which candidates are applying for. Trust me: this really works.

Strategy #6 Keep your hiring manager out of the HR process activities:

Most hiring managers are always busy with their business deliverables, and they hate filling out the forms, especially when it comes from the HR.

At first, don’t ask them to fill out the kickoff meeting forms. Apparently, it is for your information, so get all the details required to fill out in the form and do it yourself. Once you do it, get it acknowledged.

Second, always document the point of actions (POA) and minutes of meeting (MOM) soon after the meeting is over when it is fresh in everyone’s mind, and share them with all the people involved in the meeting to avoid any miscommunication.

That said, follow all the six strategies as talked about both in part 1 and part 2, and you will have a meaningful kickoff meeting with your hiring managers.