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Recruitment Alignment Meeting

“Oh no! What is this meeting in my calendar? I don't have time for this! It's all on the job description. What do they want? Go away!”

Have you ever thought this when someone from Talent Acquisition tries to schedule time with you? If so, you are far from alone if the idea of attending this meeting fills you with dread because you already have enough on your plate. Nor will you be the first manager or leader to find recruiting people for your team challenging, even scary, and wish it was less hassle.

I penned this book for managers and leaders who dislike, perhaps even hate, hiring as a way to give it a reboot. I plan to convince you that this meeting makes or breaks the entire hiring process. Getting it right, or even 50% better, will make the whole thing less loathsome and tedious. Heck, you might even enjoy this meeting when you learn why it matters, what to take, why it's the key, how to confidently articulate who you need, and how much time, money, and hassle you can save by creating a solid hiring partnership.

But Should You Be Hiring?

I know! This is an unexpected change of thought. Here you are with the sign‐off to hire a new team member, and I am asking you to pause. Even now, it is worth pondering this question for a moment.

The 2020s have been a rollercoaster for employees! Countless companies over‐downsized in an unprecedented pandemic, and too many overhired in 2021 into 2022, which led to layoff upon layoff from mid‐2022 to now, early 2024. That's before considering the companies that implemented technology and transformation, which created even more layoffs. With this in mind, expect an exceptional recruiter to challenge you on the hiring need, because should you be hiring externally at all?

Damaging Layoffs

A compassionate talent acquisition professional won't want to mess with people's lives. People aren't numbers on a spreadsheet; they are not a commodity. They are human beings with thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Layoffs are linked to a greater risk of suicide and mortality in the decades after being cut, and employees without existing health conditions are 83% likely to develop one in the 15 to 18 months after redundancy – stress‐related illnesses like hypertension, heart disease, and arthritis.1 This is before considering the drop in employee morale and the damage to the mental health of the remaining employees who fear they, too, will be cut.

In a transparent search‐engine‐led world, you must also consider the harm redundancies have on your employer and consumer brands. Take the January 2024 round of layoffs at Wayfair, which included the termination of Andrena Mcmayo, who received awareness of the situation while on her way to chemotherapy.2 To the company: a number on a spreadsheet and a confession of overhiring from the CEO. To everyone who saw the posts online, i.e. future Wayfair customers: a woman with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer fighting for her life who now has to somehow pay for her medical insurance while jobless.

Unsurprisingly, just 36% of employees say they approve of Wayfair's CEO on Glassdoor, a drop of 40% since 2021, possibly due to his December 2023 inference to the press that he has lazy employees or the poor hiring decisions that led to yet another round of layoffs.3 , 4 The publicity gets worse, too, with videos like ‘Wayfair's Shameful Layoff – Can You Lose Your Job on Disability Leave?’ appearing on YouTube.5 At the time of writing, it had received over 52k views and hundreds of comments from former customers and employees in just eight days. I will no longer shop at Wayfair, and am not the only one with this sentiment. Tiempos DePaz added in the comments, ‘Wayfair has gone downhill, and I used to purchase a lot from them often. This is the nail in the coffin.’

The cycle of overhiring and mindless layoffs must stop. The cost is too high.

In late 2022, I spoke with ServiceNow's Senior Director of Talent Acquisition, Alia Khattab; she shared that she had intentionally not hired two team members, even though she had the sign‐off. Reflecting on this, she told me,

Toby Culshaw, author of Talent Intelligence: Use Business and People Data to Drive Organizational Performance, advises companies:

Internal Hires

Recruiting internally first is wise; it is more cost‐effective, and the individual's performance and productivity are proven. Also, a 2011 study by Professor Matthew Bidwell found that new external recruits have significantly lower performance evaluations for the first two years, are paid 18–20% more, and have higher exit rates than promoted employees. Though they also bring more experience and education, hence the higher salary, and are promoted faster.7

Retention Ignoring the visibility issues across large companies, which internal mobility software can assist with, the attitudes of managers and leaders often hinder internal transfers. Some feel that they own their team members; they are bogged down in the weeds instead of looking at the benefit to the company of retaining a star employee. This behaviour creates resentment and a restless employee who will soon be perusing the internet for their next role, while their lack of motivation impacts those around them. In fact, a 2023 study from Culture Amp found that 52% of people leave organisations for development opportunities, so don't stand in the way of a team member's internal transfer if it means they'll stay.8

Before you contemplate recruiting externally, consider internal options. Who has transferable skills? Who is smart enough to pick up something new? Would the company benefit from backfilling a role and retaining this particular employee? These are the questions to consider.

On hiring internally, Alia Khattab added, ‘Internal employees with the potential to succeed should be fast‐tracked through the hiring process. If your internal employee is 70% there, appropriate learning and coaching will soon bridge the 30% gap. That's a win‐win for talent retention and growth.’

Side Note: Benchmarking Employee Experience and Human‐Centred Designer Steve Usher warns against benchmarking externally when the plan is to fill the role internally.

Alternatively, many companies offer benchmarking services that won't risk your or the company's reputation, and there are also free online tools to obtain salary information.

Renaming “the” Meeting

Now that you have considered these points and you are definitely hiring externally, it's time to discover the recruitment alignment meeting and its impact on your time, money, and workload.

When I polled talent acquisition and recruiters on LinkedIn about the name they use for the make‐or‐break meeting that starts the hiring process, I heard too many options. Unlike how they use one word, candidates, to cover prospects, applicants, interviewees, etc., the opposite is true for this meeting. It has too many ill‐fitting names, which detract from its importance.

So, in particular, I am banishing:

• Job brief – because this meeting cannot be brief! By the end of this book, you will know why this meeting is where you invest your time to save bucketloads of it later.
• Kick‐off – because your responsibilities don't end there; getting a new employee over the line takes a strong partnership.
• Intake strategy session – even though I call it that in my book, The Robot‐Proof Recruiter, far too often, it was cropped to intake.
• Intake – because you're not ordering a pizza.

US Talent Acquisition Manager Jennifer Stockton shared, ‘We stopped calling it an intake meeting because it felt like it was communicating an order process. Whereas the meeting is to align on job requirements, market realities and partnership commitments.’ Exactly! So to ensure that this meeting sets the tone for a successful hiring partnership that saves you time, money, and hassle, I call it the recruitment alignment meeting through this book.

It's Not on the Job Description

If you want to waste your irreplaceable time and company resources –– while ruining your and the company's reputation – interviewing countless people who aren't quite right, then avoid the recruitment alignment meeting by saying that it is all on the job description. Or, you could just ignore the numerous meeting requests until they become so fed up with the disrespect that they close the requirement, and you have to start over. And don't think they won't; any self‐respecting talent acquisition professional won't allow a colleague to ghost them.

However, if you want to save time, money, and hassle, you will never fob off your hiring partner. As you will read through this book, talent acquisition or external recruiters know the realities of the hiring market, and they have questions for you that don't belong in the job description. Plus, this meeting is for far more than just agreeing on who you need to hire.

So, though you may have used the current specification to secure...