Hiring Manager vs Recruiter [Who’s Really in Charge of Hiring]

Oct 27

A question I’m often asked is, “What is the difference between the hiring manager and the recruiter?” It’s an important question because the answer will influence what actions you take and with whom during the recruitment process.

Understanding the role a hiring manager plays vs the role a recruiter plays and the nuances of their relationship will enable you to move through the hiring process more smoothly and more efficiently.

In this article, we’ll take a look at:

Who hires people
What role a hiring manager plays in recruitment
The role recruiters play in recruitment
The different types of recruiters you may encounter (they’re not all the same)
Where you should focus your energy when it comes to networking
Whether you should ever try to bypass recruiters
Who you should direct follow-up to
How to communicate with both recruiters and hiring managers
And who ultimately makes hiring decisions

Who Hires People

That’s a loaded question. There are a lot of people who may have a say in hiring you. Here’s an example of one of the more complex hiring processes that a company I work with employs. Now keep in mind that this process is used when hiring people with six-figure salaries. This isn’t a $40,000 out of high school job.

First, candidates speak with me, the recruiter. I have a say in who moves forward and who doesn’t. I also have a lot of influence on the hiring team. I refer to them as a hiring team because hiring manager isn’t really an accurate term. If I approve, then you interview with the manager that you would report to. That person by most definitions would be the hiring manager.

If the hiring manager approves, then you meet with the HR Director for a (mostly) behavioral interview. If the HR Director signs off, then you meet the CEO for a final interview. The final interview is mostly a rubber stamp from the CEO meaning it’s really yours to lose at that point. As long as you don’t do anything stupid, you’ll get the job if you’ve made it that far.

As you can see, there is an entire team involved in the hiring from the recruiter to the hiring manager, and even influencers. I’m going to break all of these down later.

In other situations, there is no recruiter or influencers involved. One person may review your resume, interview you, and decide if you will get the job.

Who hires people has nothing to do with company size either. I’ve seen extremely small companies use recruiters to help them with hiring. I’ve seen extremely large companies where one manager does it all themselves.

Rather than attempt to answer the question of who hires people, I think it’s more advantageous to look at who plays what role in the hiring process. Let’s take a look at that next.

The Role of the Hiring Manager in Recruiting

One of the important things to remember as you read this section is that recruiting and hiring is not the primary job of a hiring manager. They have a full-time job outside of recruiting. This means that there are many other factors that can pull them or motivate them through the hiring process.

Who Is The Hiring Manager

The hiring manager is the person responsible for determining a candidate’s ability and potential for success in a particular job. They usually have some experience in the job and they understand the role they are hiring for better than the recruiter or anyone else. Don’t always assume this, however. I’ve partnered with some hiring managers who knew very little about how the role operated. But that’s a story for another article.

Remember that story I told you earlier about the complex hiring process? Don’t forget that there may be more than one hiring manager. You are a big investment and multiple people could have a stake in your success. The higher you climb in responsibilities, this statement becomes more true. You may need several individuals to sign off on your candidacy before a job offer is made.

If your job impacts multiple departments, you may need multiple department heads to approve your job offer.

Knowing where the buck stops and identifying who the hiring manager is can be challenging from the outside. It’s not always the person you will report to (as ironic as that sounds). The person who makes the decision could be a couple of steps up the corporate ladder from your potential future boss, so keep that in mind.

What Does the Hiring Manager Do

The hiring manager ultimately makes the decisions and informs the recruiter on how to proceed with candidates in the hiring process. Here are some of the responsibilities that hiring managers typically hold in recruiting.

Write the first draft of a job description (not always, but usually)
Briefs the recruiter and sets the screening parameters based on essential abilities and nice-to-have skills
Reviews short lists of resumes and cover letters that are pre-screened by a recruiter
Interviews candidates (usually these interviews are more technical in nature, focused on determining if you can do the job)
Sells candidates on the job and the company during interviews (although this is a shared role with the recruiter in many situations)
Have the final say on who gets a job offer and who doesn’t
Approves salary and pay to be included in job offers (although a recruiter may be the actual negotiator with the candidate)
Partners with talent acquisition to forecast headcount needs and request additional headcount based on budgets throughout the year

Types of Recruiters

The first thing to realize is that there isn’t always a recruiter involved in hiring. Some hiring managers do their own hiring; however, in my experience, most companies either have an internal recruiter on their team or partner with an outside agency. Not all recruiters are the same. In order to discuss the role recruiters play in hiring, we should first examine the different types of recruiters you may encounter.

Corporate Recruiters

These are the recruiters who work for the company you are applying to work for. They are on that company’s payroll as a W2 employee and they only recruit for roles within that company.

Some may recruit for every position within the company. I’ve met some that recruit for warehouse labor and the CFO. Others may recruit for a particular division within the company. There are a lot of ways talent acquisition teams are structured. Because of this, don’t assume that one recruiter will recruit for the job you want even if they work at the company.

The resources provided to corporate recruiters vary greatly as well. Some of them have many resources at their disposal, while others have to do their best with a shoestring budget. This may impact your experience and how they interact with you.

Lastly, many corporate recruiters do partner with outside recruiters, so there may be multiple recruiter contacts that you could have interactions with.

Agency Recruiters

There are many different types of agency recruiters. Some work in high-volume staffing, some recruit for a particular business segment, some recruit for niche job functions, and some only work at the executive search level.

Either way, these recruiters do not work for one company. They work for an agency that partners with multiple companies to help them source and find talent.

Unlike corporate recruiters who get paid a fixed salary, agency recruiters are many times compensated with a heavy commission structure. Some work solely on commission. That means they don’t get paid until you get the job.

This creates a slightly different dynamic between the recruiter and the candidate because there is a large incentive to place the right person in the role quickly (before someone else does).

There are many different fee structures for agency recruiters, but the vast majority of them are still paid a percentage of your annual salary. This means the more you make, the more they get paid. This alignment can be very advantageous when it comes to salary negotiations because you both have a common goal - to get paid the most.

Other Names For Recruiters

Recruiters don’t always have the job title of recruiter either. Some common job titles you may see include:

Recruiter
Talent Acquisition Specialist
Recruiting Manager
Talent Acquisition Manager
Business Solutions Manager
Executive Recruiter
Sourcer (not a full recruiter, but involved in the sourcing aspects)

What Do Recruiters Do

Recruiters vary greatly. Some are in more of a support role and others are more of a business partner to the managers they serve.

Unfortunately, most articles you read get this wrong and view recruiters as mere sourcers. That would be inaccurate and a very unsophisticated look at what recruiters do. In this section, we’ll break down exactly what recruiters do in different organizations in an in-depth look.

Job Descriptions

The level of involvement here varies greatly from company to company. Some recruiters are given a job description and instructed to post it online as is. The hiring manager wrote the job description and the recruiter is only responsible for posting it to job boards and the company website.

Some recruiters are more experienced than others and have more responsibility when it comes to formulating job descriptions. In most of my recruiting experiences, I was the one who wrote the job listing. The hiring manager and I would sit down to discuss the role. I would ask questions, challenge assumptions, brief them on market conditions, and we would together come up with a job description that was useable and would attract the right candidates.

While in all situations, the hiring manager has the ultimate say on what is required of candidates, some recruiters have more influence than others and can stretch on requirements. The more embedded a recruiter is with an organization, the more influence they usually have.

And this doesn’t mean that they have to be a corporate recruiter either. Many agency recruiters have worked with the same companies for years and are very embedded in their client’s recruitment process.

Advertising Jobs

The individual recruiter may not determine where job ads are placed, but the overall recruitment function usually does. Recruitment could be embedded within the human resources team or it could be a stand-alone talent acquisition department. I’ve seen both. Either way, the leaders of the recruitment team usually assess their return on investment for each advertising channel and then determine the appropriate place to list their jobs.

They may not list all their jobs in the same places either. Some jobs may be better suited for Facebook ads, some for LinkedIn, and some for Indeed. The larger the team and the more resources they have, the more diverse this strategy can become. So just because you see one job advertised on LinkedIn, don’t assume all of their jobs will be there.

The best thing you can do is to visit the company’s website (and hopefully they have a careers page).

Recruitment Strategy

Recruiting isn’t solely about posting jobs and reviewing resumes. Depending on the type of recruiter and the opening, there could be a significant investment in determining the recruitment strategy beyond job postings.

For executive-level searches, recruiters often determine where those executive candidates may hang out so they can “bump” into them.

Recruiters may attend association events, trade shows, and job fairs. The recruiting team is responsible for determining where their time is best spent.

When I worked for one of the world’s largest recruitment firms, I spent a lot of time at industry association events (I even joined the board for one) and built competitor lists to source candidates out of other companies. It was my responsibility to determine the appropriate recruitment strategy for my openings.

Sourcing

Both types of recruiters will source and identify candidates that could fill an opening. This includes reviewing applications and resumes, boolean searching in online databases such as LinkedIn and resume databases, and searching for candidates already in their ATS (applicant tracking system).

Both groups of recruiters may source and keep an eye on candidates who could fill future openings as well, although in my experience this is more common with agency recruiters who will then market candidates to companies that may hire them based on past hiring behavior.

Either way, a recruiter is more than likely going to be the first one to read your resume when you apply for a job.

It’s not uncommon to receive a message that looks like this:

I’m currently recruiting for a Corporate Controller opening for a global manufacturer here in Atlanta. I saw that you have over 8 years of management accounting experience and I’m writing to see if you or anyone you may know is open to discussing a new role.
The company is paying slightly above market average at $150,000 to $165,000 plus a healthy slate of benefits. The biggest challenge we need someone to solve is streamlining closing procedures and partnering with Accounting Managers to automate some of the transactional accounting tasks.
If you’d be interested in a conversation, please let me know. Also feel free to foward this message and my contact information to anyone you may know with a similar background.

Now obviously, some recruiters are more sophisticated and better at their jobs than others. But hopefully, if you’re in their database and searchable online, you’ll get some messages similar to this for roles that will interest you. If you’re not getting messages like this or you’re getting messages for jobs you’re not interested in, consider working with a coach to improve your online searchability.

Phone Screens

Most of the time a recruiter will be your first contact with a company and that usually takes place as a phone screen or preliminary interview. Not all recruiters are equal when it comes to the first interview (I am considering phone screens an interview).

Recruiters who specialize in a particular job function or division should understand the roles they recruit for more technically than others. In these situations, you can expect technical questions similar to those a hiring manager may ask.

Recruiters who recruit for a gamut of openings may be more general with their questioning. They may ask very few technical questions. Instead, this phone screen may simply cover missing information such as your salary expectations, potential start date, and information about your previous employers and roles.

Remember that recruiters can only give you the information they were given by the hiring manager. More seasoned recruiters will be better at asking hiring managers about the majority of questions you may have ahead of time, but they may not have all the answers. Nonetheless, don’t be afraid to ask. If a recruiter doesn’t know they’ll let you know. You can save any of those questions for the hiring manager later.

But don’t be afraid to ask questions during a phone screen. Your questions often tell more about your thought process and values than the replies you give to the recruiter’s questions.

If you’ve been applying for jobs for a while, you’ve probably experienced an entire array of experiences with recruiters and phone screens. Just remember, some are more sophisticated than others. But all of them hold the keys to the kingdom, so be nice.

Communications

In most situations, recruiters are ultimately responsible for all candidate communications. They will be your primary point of contact and you shouldn’t go around them unless they or a hiring manager opens that door for you.

Both corporate and agency recruiters will track and manage your progress through the hiring pipeline and facilitate all communications on behalf of the company. In my 20 years of experience, there is often very little direct communication between the hiring manager and candidates until an offer has been accepted.

Recruiters are heavily involved in salary negotiations. A good recruiter will advocate for you with the hiring team. In most situations, you and the recruiter have probably spoken extensively about compensation from the beginning of the process. The recruiter will use that information to work with the hiring team to put together a competitive offer that meets everyone’s needs.

When there is a gap between salary expectations and budget constraints, recruiters are often the people responsible for helping to close the gap. I’ve been a part of many scenarios where I felt like a mediator between the hiring manager and the candidate to make a deal happen.

Keep in mind that the recruiter doesn’t have any power to determine your salary or compensation. That power resides with the hiring manager. They can only advocate for you and set up everyone for a smooth job offer.

Training

Some of the more experienced recruiters will also train managers on interview techniques. They will coach hiring managers through the hiring process and do their best to keep everything on track. Many hiring managers hire a new person once every few years and some have never hired at all. Recruiters are often tasked with guiding these managers through best practices.

Negotiate Job Offers

In many scenarios, it is the recruiter who will extend a job offer and facilitate salary negotiations. Note, I said facilitate. Recruiters have no decision-making ability when it comes to a candidate’s compensation package.

Good recruiters usually ask about your salary expectations up front and share the company’s budget. They will then use this information to advocate for you when it comes time to make an offer. Hiring managers are busy and oftentimes won’t have all this information in front of them. A recruiter will advise them on your expectations and what it will take to secure your acceptance.

If there is any back and forth involved, it is often the recruiter who plays middle-man and mediator between you and the hiring manager.

The important thing that you should remember is to be upfront with recruiters about your salary expectations so they can advocate for you and set those expectations wit the hiring team. That’s their job, but they can only do it as well as you help them. And don’t move the goalpost on them later.

Forecast Openings

Many corporate recruiters will be involved with forecasting hiring needs with the managers they support. They may also be responsible for coming up with a plan to proactively source candidates for those openings so they can move quickly when a requisition is approved.

Agency recruiters also create pipelines of candidates based on two categories. They tend to focus on the most difficult openings their clients have forecasted for the year and the most frequently filled openings. They then build pipelines of candidates and present them to their clients when they find them. This proactive approach can be useful to you as a job seeker because sometimes they can get you in front of an opening before it’s even advertised.

What About Influencers

Many people forget that there are others besides the hiring manager and the recruiter who play an important role in recruitment. In many situations, there are influencers who also have input into your candidacy. This could be someone in HR, team members, or even other department heads. You may not meet all of the influencers at a company either. But for the ones you do meet, treat them like you would the hiring manager or recruiter.

Put your best foot forward and treat every interaction (even with the receptionist) as a chance to show your traits, skills, and abilities.

Are Hiring Managers More Engaged in Hiring Than Recruiters

I’ve worked with hundreds of hiring managers at many different companies and they all have different levels of engagement with hiring. The thing you have to remember about hiring managers is that recruiting is not their primary job. It’s only a piece of what they do and for many, it’s a temporary piece that they only have to do once in a while.

Hiring managers are not judged on recruitment metrics either. Their scorecard usually has nothing to do with recruitment. So unless they are really feeling the pain of having a vacancy on their team, they may not be very motivated to move things along.

Recruiters on the other hand are solely judged by recruiting metrics. Things like time to fill an opening are a common KPI (key performance indicator) for them. If you’re working with an agency recruiter, they may be especially motivated to fill an opening because they only get paid when they do.

There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes. Sometimes someone else is pushing a new hire onto the hiring manager from above and so the hiring manager drags their feet in filling the opening.

Having worked with dozens of recruiting teams, I usually find that recruiters are much more engaged in hiring than hiring managers and they should be. That is their job. They are the facilitators of the process.

What does this mean for you? You don’t know what is going on behind the scenes, but you should know that recruiters own the recruitment process, not hiring managers. While recruiters may also be waiting on a hiring manager to give them feedback, the recruiter is the person who can and will advocate for you.

Keep your communication open with them at all times.

Should You Build a Relationship With Recruiters or Hiring Managers

The short answer is you should build relationships with both recruiters and hiring managers, but not all of them. Let me explain.

If you are looking for a job build relationships with potential hiring managers. Find out where they hang out and insert yourself in those places. Joining relevant associations, online forums, and industry events could all be good choices when networking and building relationships with potential hiring managers.

When it comes to recruiters, find the ones that specialize and recruit for roles you would be interested in. Network with corporate recruiters who work for companies you want to work for and who hire for the roles you would pursue next. Follow them on social media and pay attention to how they, in particular, recruit. Engage with them when possible.

For agency recruiters, find those who specialize in placing candidates in jobs that you are after. Many recruiters specialize in a job function or industry niche. Make sure the recruiter is in your niche. This will ensure it’s worth your time and effort.

I also hate to say it, because everyone has to start somewhere, but I would seek out recruiters who have been in a particular marketplace for several years and have deep connections with various hiring managers. A new recruiter won’t have many opportunities for you and they won’t have the market intel that you need.

Should You Ever Go Around a Recruiter

In most situations, no. Never try to bypass the recruiter. While there’s nothing wrong with networking with hiring managers and even sending your resume to them, once you are a serious candidate for a role, never try to sidestep a recruiter.

Recruiters exist in a company for a reason and sidestepping them usually only upsets everyone in the process. It makes it harder for the recruiter and the hiring manager to do their job effectively.

Oftentimes individuals attempt to go around a recruiter when they haven’t heard feedback or they received feedback they didn’t like. But understand that the recruiter is delivering the feedback based on the hiring manager’s decisions, not their own.

How to Talk to The Hiring Manager and the Recruiter

Conversations with a Recruiter

A recruiter’s job is dependent on their ability to send qualified people, the best people, to hiring managers. When speaking with a recruiter they will want to know:

about your background and previous job experiences
your motivation for changing jobs (and to obtain this specific job)
when you could potentially start a new job at their company
your salary expectations

The recruiter will try to cover all their bases so they are not caught off guard when hiring managers ask questions about these things.

Many people think recruiters just forward resumes to a hiring manager, but that’s not true in many situations. Many times a recruiter will also make the initial pitch to the hiring manager on why they should interview you. Recruiters want to know that you’re qualified for the job and that you can join the team when they need you and within the hiring manager’s budget.

A recruiter may not know all the technical aspects of the job. For most of them, they’ve never done the job before. But they should have a good idea of what the day-to-day looks like by asking smart questions to the hiring manager during a brief.

Recruiters should be able to answer your questions about how the team is structured, how the role is managed, and what success looks like in the job. Of course, you’ll want to verify all this information with the hiring manager should you make it to another interview because sometimes things change or they get lost in transit between hiring manager and recruiter.

Your initial conversations with a recruiter set the foundation for the rest of your hiring journey so be candid and straightforward.

Conversations with a Hiring Manager

These conversations should be much more in-depth. The hiring manager usually understands the work you’ll do intimately because they’ve done it themselves or they manage it. When speaking with a hiring manager expect them to test your abilities. They may even test you on the spot with your knowledge of a subject.

For these conversations, you’ll want to really prepare by understanding how your background positions you to be successful in the job. You’ll also want to be prepared to have a solid back-and-forth dialogue about what they expect so come prepared to ask good questions.

Related Article: 38 Smart Questions to Ask in a Job Interview

Should I Follow Up With the Hiring Manager or Recruiter

Unless a hiring manager contacts you directly, it’s best to follow up with the recruiter. Remember, one of a recruiter’s primary jobs is to facilitate and manage communications between candidates and hiring managers. Unless told otherwise, direct your communications to the recruiter.

Of course, if a recruiter hasn’t responded to you within a week, follow up with the hiring manager as well. You never know what could be going on. The recruiter could be out on leave for some unexpected reason or they could be unprofessional and delaying because they don’t know what to tell you. Most good recruiters will at least respond to your communication attempts with a brief status update once you’re past the interview stages.

Does the Recruiter or Hiring Manager Make the Job Offer

While a recruiter may be the one to communicate a job offer to you, the hiring manager controls the decision to extend the offer. The hiring manager or human resources may be the decider of any compensation offered, but the recruiter will facilitate salary negotiations in many organizations.

Should You Thank the Recruiter or Hiring Manager

If you’re going to send a thank you letter, send it to both of them when you can. If you have both the recruiter's and the hiring manager’s email addresses, thank them both. While it’s not a requirement, it does make a good impression on most.

If you interviewed with a recruiter, thank them for their time. If you interviewed with a hiring manager, thank them for their time. If you don’t have the hiring manager’s contact information, send your thank you note to the recruiter and ask them to politely forward it to the manager.

Hiring Manager vs. Recruiter Recommended Reading

Ghosted After Job Offer [Navigating What Comes Next]

Job Offer Taking Too Long [Here’s What Is Happening]

Signs You Will Get The Job Offer After an Interview

Cole Sperry has been a recruiter and resume writer since 2015, working with tens of thousands of job seekers, and hundreds of employers. Today Cole runs a boutique advisory firm consulting with dozens of recruiting firms, oversees Optim’s Resume Revision Service and On-Demand Coaching Program, and is the Managing Editor at OptimCareers.com.