Kicking off a Role

Set a strong foundation.

In Recruiting, you want to set a strong foundation from the start, and that means a well-executed and complete role kick-off. It will provide alignment on the role, which leads into interviewer preparation and clarity on the rubric: skill set and attributes being evaluated. This is when you set a consistent and equitable process, foreseeing any potential blockers in hiring - it can be as simple as identifying if the interviewing team has any calendar blocks (ie. too packed to fit interviews, pushing them out), defined exercise and prep material if applicable, and anything else unique to the role. A streamlined process will allow the team to move fast, which is usually the case for strong candidates.

As a talent partner, you are driving the strategy for hiring - and this will include setting metrics for success, having data driven prediction for time to fill role, resources and tactics the team will need to close the ideal candidate, and a pulse on the market. Start by scoping and defining the role with a well run role kick-off, and decrease your time to find, attract, engage, and close talent.

Define your workflow.

Beginning a new search requires getting your hiring manager and team together to define your target candidate, hiring strategy, job description, exercise or case study, and flush out the interview panel. Instead of having all of that content and information live in different places, you can house it all in one doc. First figure out what’s needed for you to work on the role, then begin laying it all out and filling in the missing pieces with your hiring team.

A standardized process is important in helping eliminate biases, promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in hiring. This is also when you can work with a Hiring manager to set DEI benchmarks and goals to diversify top of funnel candidates.

Recognize and address pain points.

We know it’s not easy at first. You may have bits and pieces in different docs and spreadsheets and have to deal with knowledge sprawl, all while kicking off a new role and being a supportive partner on the hiring team. Finding and organizing everything may be tedious and painful, but remember that this is only true in the beginning as you adapt to an all in one doc. If not, these laborious tasks would persist throughout your recruiting process.

As you plan, strategize, and refine all of your content and information in one convenient place, you’ll find yourself having a lot more time back. Great people will rarely come knocking on your door for your open job, you have to be consistent and aggressive about building your pipeline, and less time spent on the manual process is more time spent on recruiting and hiring!

Set the tone, don’t compromise on hiring quality.

The best companies will invest time on a well defined and driven hiring process because the benefits compound over time. It leads to better business outcomes. Set a high bar on hiring quality and you’ll find that it becomes easier to hire other great people - great people want to work with great people. The challenges that come from cutting corners are hard to recover from and costly. More on incorporating strategy and

Running Hiring Syncs⁠

in the next section. Start with kicking off your role, and check out the free template that we use for our role kick-offs below to get started today.

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Role Kick Off Template

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Additional Resources ✨

Need a guide and template for headcount approval & planning? Check out the ‘

Headcount approval & planning process⁠

’ template.

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