Recruitment SLAs & other such nonsense

“We have an SLA with our hiring managers where they HAVE to review CVs within 48 hours”

This came up in a conversation I was having with an internal recruiter a couple of years ago, they were quite proud that they had this SLA enforced on their hiring managers. Curiosity got the better of me so I asked:

“What happens if they don’t?”

I already knew the answer. Nothing.

You see, that’s the problem with enforcing or encouraging these types of SLAs on your hiring managers. There’s no consequence for breaking them. An SLA without consequence is pretty pointless.

An SLA at it’s very simplest is a commitment between a service provider and a client, they’re usually contractual and there are consequences for failing deliver on it.

This is why SLAs don’t work between hiring manager and internal recruiter. Firstly your hiring manager is not your client and you are not their service provider. You’re their partner, you’re in it together – but that’s a completely different topic.

Secondly, there is no consequence. And that’s why these SLAs don’t work.

So if SLAs aren’t the answer, what is?

Talk to your managers about how competitive the talent market is. Bring some data to evidence it, show them who you’re competing with. Explain to them that by taking our time candidates will have a rubbish experience, likely be snapped up elsewhere and the role will never be filled.

How’s that for a consequence?

You can also create mechanisms to prompt managers to feedback quickly. They don’t deliberately take their time, they have day jobs too, it’s understandable they’ll forget.

Setup regular calls to discuss progress, or send a message to remind them. Pop an invite in their diary to remind them.

Educating and partnering with your managers, combined with a couple of mechanisms to remind them are way more powerful than an arbitrary SLA .

And if neither of those work, then stop working on the role until the manager commits to play their part.

Now there is the ultimate consequence.

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