First-time hiring managers are often thrown into the process without much preparation and face challenges that even the most experienced hiring managers struggle with. While they may know the most about the role they are hiring for, they’re still building the skills required to interview and select candidates—less obvious skills like spotting transferable experience and understanding the market develop only through practice.

The good news is that hiring effectively is something anyone can learn, and with the right coaching, new hiring managers can make great hires, build capacity for their teams, and create a positive experience for candidates along the way. Here are the most common challenges we see and how to coach less experienced hiring managers through them.

Ruling Out Candidates Too Quickly

Earlier career hiring managers may not have the workplace experience to spot transferable skills across sectors, industries, or functional areas. People are wired to gravitate toward the familiar. So, without having seen many different career paths play out, our default is to look for a very specific profile (one that resembles our own education level and career path), which can unintentionally screen out candidates who don’t match that picture.

This common misstep limits the candidate pool at the stage where you want to be as open as possible. No single candidate will ever be perfect, and until you talk to a range of candidates, you won’t fully know what would add the most value to your team.

Coaching Strategy

If the hiring manager is quick to say no at the resume review stage, ask them to explain their specific concerns in terms of the work itself rather than assumptions about background or credentials. Talk through the key skills the role requires. Which are non-negotiable vs. “nice to have”? Which could be developed with training? Which could be supplemented by someone else on the team?

It also helps to remember that the resume review stage isn’t where hiring decisions get made. The goal is to build the broadest and most diverse pool of promising candidates you’d like to learn more about. Structured interviews and work sample tests are where more rigorous evaluation should happen, and that’s the time to be more selective.

Overcomplicating the Role

We also see a pattern in how early career hiring managers describe the role itself: a tendency to overcomplicate. This is especially common when they’ve been promoted and are backfilling the position. They’ve done the job and seen it at its most complex. But in most cases, they worked through those difficult challenges and, as a result, improved the role. A new person stepping in isn’t going to face the same obstacles.

Inflating the complexity of a role risks misalignment between the position and the candidate pool. Qualified candidates could self-select out, thinking their skills don’t measure up, or the role may attract someone so experienced that there isn’t enough room for them to grow.

Coaching Strategy

Guide the hiring manager toward thinking about the core work of the job rather than the complications that arose while they were in it. Help them separate their own experience from what needs to get done today.

Overlooking Market Realities

How the role performs in the market depends on several factors. There is always a balancing act between the skills and experience the role requires, what the organization has budgeted for compensation, and who’s looking at that time. This is a dynamic that even experienced hiring managers can underestimate. And when expectations don’t match what the market produces, it can feel like the candidate pool is disappointing when it’s more a matter of discussing tradeoffs and adjusting tactics.

Coaching Strategy

Talk through the basics before the search launches. Is the compensation competitive? Does this combination of skills and experience exist in your target market? Is the role designed in a way that’s attractive to candidates who have other options? Get clarity on expectations early and talk about what you might be able to shift depending on how candidates respond. If it turns out the role is out of step with the market, that’s useful information. It creates an opportunity to adjust in real time, before the role sits open for too long

The Better You Prepare, the Better You’ll Hire

Whenever the Staffing Advisors team is running a search with a first-time hiring manager, we take extra steps to help them prepare. Before they ever review a resume or meet a candidate, we talk through the skills the role requires, how those skills might show up across different career paths, and how to use interview time most effectively with structured, competency-based questions and a work sample for finalists. This is something any organization can build into its HR practices.

If you know someone on your team who will eventually need to hire, help them develop these skills before a role opens. Bring them into an active search as an observer and discuss your decision-making framework. It’s a good idea to invest in these skills early. As team members grow in seniority, the ability to hire well becomes as important as the functional skills they bring to the job.

Keep Reading

  • Staffing Advisors Employer Guide to Interviewing. A complete guide through every stage of the interview process—from pre-interview work and who to include in your interviews to determining what to discuss during structured interviews and how to collect feedback afterward.
  • Conducting Interviews That Actually Predict Impact. Developing effective interview questions is an essential part of competency-driven hiring. Here are the strategies the Staffing Advisors team uses to ensure interviews surface the right kind of information to help you assess candidates.
  • How Work Sample Testing Helps You Hire Better. Extensive research shows that work sample tests are a more accurate predictor of success on the job than the interview itself. This is a step-by-step guide to developing a work sample test with examples from different career levels.