Hiring Team

Table of Contents

• What is a hiring team?
• Hiring Team Roles
• How to address a hiring team as an applicant

What is a hiring team?

As the name implies, a hiring team is the group of employees tasked with filling a vacant position(s). Hiring teams are typically responsible for everything from the recruiting of talent, interviewing of applicants, and hiring the proper candidate.

Hiring Team Roles

The number of people involved in a hiring team is unique to each organization. However, most hiring teams include the following role:

Hiring Manager: The hiring manager is the person within the organization that requests a new position to fill. They are therefore the catalyst for the formation of the hiring team. Hiring managers subsequently serve as the head of the hiring team. They are responsible for coordinating with Human Resources throughout the search. They also participate in each stage of the hiring process, from recruitment to the job offer.

Recruiter: recruiters oversee the end-to-end process of talent acquisition for a company. Some of a recruiter’s key responsibilities within the hiring team include:

• Meeting with the hiring manager
• Attracting and sourcing (recruitment marketing) desirable applicants; pre-screening candidates, and presenting qualified applicants to the hiring manager.
• Serving as the organization’s brand ambassador, while internally and externally soliciting employee referrals
• Serving as the main point of contact for all parties throughout the hiring process
• Conducting reference checks, background checks and the job offer management process
• Ensuring an exceptional candidate experience
• Facilitating employee onboarding to ensure the new hire is prepared to begin the new position on day one.

Further, recruiters are often relied upon to keep the hiring process moving smoothly. A successful recruiter also takes on the very important strategic role of laying the foundation of a strong, long-term relationship between candidates and hiring managers.

Talent Sourcer: Talent sourcing is a method of generating candidate flow that involves identifying and networking with potential job candidates. The long-term goal of talent sourcing it to convert individuals into applicants or producing additional referrals. Talent sourcing and recruiting work symbiotically, but nonetheless have distinct differences. Talent recruiters manage the recruiting process from end-to-end and engage with talent sourcers when needed. Talent sourcers works a smaller number of requisitions and focus on building comprehensive search strings.

Interviewers: The size and roles within an interview team vary based on the size of an organization, the level of the position being filled, and other factors. The interview team can include the hiring manager, relevant supervisors and managers, key internal customers or stakeholders, and important potential colleagues. The primary job of the interview team is to ensure a consistent methodology for all interviews in order to yield the most reliable results.

Recruiting Coordinator: Recruiting coordinators perform a vital support role to recruiters throughout the hiring process. Recruiting coordinators help with various tasks including posting positions to job boards, scheduling interviews, assisting with coordinating candidate travel (if needed), creating offer letters and running background checks.

How to address a hiring team as an applicant

As an applicant, given the number of people included in the hiring team, you’ll likely interact with several members of the team individually, and also interface with the entire team. Therefore, it’s essential that you have the interpersonal sophistication to handle the multiple interactions in a professional manner. That begins with your initial email contact with team. Here’s how you should handle that first communication.

Avoid “To Whom it May Concern”: the heading of your email or cover letter affords you an immediate opportunity to both demonstrate your interest in the job and showcase your attention to detail. In order to capitalize on this opportunity, you should avoid a generic salutation, like “To Whom it May Concern.” Instead, address the email and cover letter to the hiring manager.

Where do you find that information? It’s likely included in the job ad, or available on the company website. If you cannot find it there, call the company and ask. Tell whomever you speak to that you are applying to x position and would like the name of the hiring manager in order to properly address your cover letter.

If, for whatever reason, you cannot determine the hiring manager, address your cover letter and/or email to “Dear Hiring Team.”