Hiring Manager

After the phone screening, the company brought me in to interview with the Hiring Manager. We got along well and I’m looking forward to potentially working for them if I’m hired!

• Is the Hiring Manager part of HR?Somewhat counterintuitively to some, the Hiring Manager is not a dedicated role in charge of hiring new employees, and is not considered part of the Human Resources (HR) department – at least not inherently. Hiring Manager is simply the generic name for the manager who supervises the role being hired for. For example, when hiring for a new Account Manager, the Hiring Manager may be the Director of Sales. For another example, when hiring for an Assistant Manager at a restaurant, the Hiring Manager may be the General Manager of the restaurant. In simple terms, the Hiring Manager is whoever would be the boss of the new hire!
• Does the Hiring Manager do interviews with candidates?Yes, the Hiring Manager is almost always expected to do interviews with candidates – they are the closest to the position being hired for and understand the needs of the position better than anyone, and they’ll be working directly with the new hire, so a Hiring Manager should be involved with the interview process whenever possible.However, a Hiring Manager doesn’t necessarily need to be involved in every step of the interview process. It’s very common for larger companies that receive significant numbers of applications to have HR or an outside recruiter handle the initial screening interviews, and only bring in the Hiring Manager once the candidate pool has been further narrowed down.
• How should the Hiring Manager prepare for an interview?A Hiring Manager should prepare for an interview by fully familiarizing themselves with the job they’re hiring for. Especially when a job is brand-new or hasn’t had an opening in a very long time, it’s easy for supervisors to over-estimate their knowledge of the job requirements, responsibilities, and daily duties. To interrogate their assumptions and come to full terms with the job at-hand, a Hiring Manager may choose to do a Functional Job Analysis or review/update the job description. Hiring Managers should also prepare the questions they plan on asking, as well as anticipate what questions they may receive from candidates. By doing both, the Hiring Manager can ensure that they get the most and highest-quality information out of the relatively short time they can allocate to each candidate.
• What should a job candidate ask the Hiring Manager?Job interviews are a two-way street: candidates can – and should – be prepared to ask questions during interviews, in addition to just answering them. While some basic questions (such as questions about corporate structure, compensation, benefits, etc) can be answered by HR, the details of a job are best directed towards the Hiring Manager. They’ll be able to help answer questions about what the job looks like day-to-day, the challenges and stressors involved, the team they’ll be working with, etc.Similarly, because the Hiring Manager will be supervising the candidate being interviewed, it’s important to ask questions to help you get a sense of the manager themselves: how they deliver tough feedback, what they’re own workload looks like, how disagreements are addressed, etc.