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I’m a bit frustrated with the recruiting process at my company, but don’t want to complain. How can I express my concerns constructively?

Elaine Varelas provides suggestions on how to make the recruitment process more efficient for all those involved.

Ask the Job Doc. Boston.com

August 21, 2024

3 minutes to read

Q. The internal recruiters at my company aren’t always good at choosing candidates and they set me up for interviews (often back-to-back) and the candidates are terrible. They do say that the candidate might not be the best fit for this particular role, but another role may come up that might suit them. Interviewing is incredibly time consuming, and I have to write up a report afterwards and cast my vote whether the candidate should continue the interview process. How can I express my frustration without complaining or sounding negative? I’m in the tech field so I understand if they can’t always make a judgment call, but I feel like the recruitment process could use improvement. Having to interview candidates also takes me away from my work and there is no consistency with when they are scheduled.

A. The goal of internal recruiters is capturing the best candidates by recruiting for the entire organization. While it’s nice that they say the candidates might not be the best fit for a particular role, but another opportunity might come up in the future within the organization that better aligns with their experience and expertise, it seems reasonable for you to say, “I only want to interview candidates who are 70% right for my role.” You may want to work with the recruiting team to ensure the job description includes all the necessary technical skills and accurately reflects the role. You need to spend time with the recruiters letting them know, to the highest degree you can, what criteria you’re looking for so they can find the right candidates for you. You can easily do that without complaining or sounding negative. You can do that by providing detailed feedback as to why a candidate isn’t a good fit for a particular role. It’s really bringing them into the inner workings of your own recruiting and job description development.

If you believe the recruitment process can use improvement, the recruiter is not the person to talk to. If you aren’t the hiring manager, you can start by asking your manager if they have given any direction to talent acquisition about your involvement. Maybe your manager thinks you are the strongest leader to interview for the whole technical group. If not, ask if you can meet with the head of talent acquisition, if you have one, or the head of HR. You or you manager need to find out if the recruiters use you as the screening manager because of the skills you bring to the interview process and the talent that you have writing up the reports.

If you are leading the meeting, go in with a most positive mindset by saying, “I know your recruiters are trying to do right for the whole organization. And I’ve recently spent time articulating my wants for my specific candidates. Tell me more about your view of the recruiting process.” And let the talent acquisition leader start. They may be able to give you insights into what they feel their challenges are with the rest of the organization and with managers’ ability or inability to screen and interview candidates.

This may be a great opportunity to provide training to the recruiters in technical interviewing or the managers to be better interviewers so that others can say, “Not right for my role, but would be a great addition to the organization.” So, perhaps the evaluation piece needs fine-tuning as well. Good interviewing is extremely time-consuming so you might suggest one day or dedicated blocks of time for interviews to minimize disruptions to multiple days of your workflow.

And if you’re feeling bad because you’re rejecting many of these candidates, don’t. That’s your job. Your job is to do an effective screening on whether this person is right for this role, especially if you’re in a tech role. And if they might be right for a non-tech role, feel free to make that recommendation as well. And encourage the recruiter to have a non-tech staff member interview them. When you’re given the resume and asked to interview, if you believe that that person will not be right for your job, just based on the criteria on the resume that you see, we encourage you to push back on the recruiter and say, “This person doesn’t meet the basic tech criteria that I gave you.” Review the tech criteria with the recruiter and let them know that this is not the most efficient use of your time.