Tag Archives: manager once removed

It’s Not Micro-Management

“As the Manager Once Removed, what else am I responsible for in this hiring process?” Byron asked.

“Since this hire is two Strata below, and since you are the manager of the Hiring Manager, you are the coach,” I replied.

“Coach?” Byron questioned.

“Yes, coach. How good is Ron at hiring?”

“Well, he doesn’t have that much experience with it, but he has hired people before. I don’t want to micro-manage him.”

“It is not micro-management to sit down with Ron and hammer out the job description. I mean a real job description, one that you can interview from. It’s not micro-management to sit down with Ron and create a list of 50-60 critical questions that need to be asked during the interview. You are the coach. This is your process to drive.”

MOR Drives the Hiring Process

“So, just exactly what do I do?” asked Byron. He had hired people before, but he had never looked at hiring in exactly this way.

“Your department has an opening two Strata below you. As the Manager Once Removed, it is your responsibility to create the Talent Pool from which the Hiring Manager will select. Creating the Talent Pool means that you drive this process. Every morning, when you are fresh, I expect you to come in and spend a half hour to forty five minutes reviewing resumes. I expect that each day, you will find two or three that you will find an interest in. I expect you to make two or three screening phone calls every day. Once or twice a week, I expect you will actually run across a candidate. If you find only one per week, that is fifty people per year that you might bring in to interview for a supervisor level position.”

“But we have never had fifty people that qualified,” Byron continued to push back.

“Have you ever walked in the woods, stepped over a log that had a snake under it, that you didn’t know about?” I asked.

Byron was one of the sharp light bulbs in the box. “Trick question?” he asked.

“Trick question.”