Your organization’s growth and success depend on how well you manage your best assets – your employees.
Making sure everything employee-related runs smoothly and optimizing talent so your business can thrive is the responsibility of a human resources manager. So hiring an HR manager is an important task, and you need a strategic plan.
To help you along, we’ve put together this quick guide to hiring a human resources manager that includes advice on how to create a great HR manager job description, where to find top HR manager talent, and how to evaluate candidates.
Table of contents
- Why should you hire a human resources manager?
- What is the role of a human resources manager?
- Human resources manager job responsibilities
- Human resources manager job requirements
- Key HR manager skills
- Where to find great HR managers
- How to build a skills assessment for HR manager candidates
- ✅ Find the right HR manager for your team with skills testing
Why should you hire a human resources manager?
Hiring an HR manager sets your business up for future growth by helping you expand, maintain, and develop your employees and teams. In addition to ensuring employees are engaged and productive, HR managers also help you comply with labor laws and regulations.
What is the role of a human resources manager?
HR managers oversee recruitment and hiring activities, compensation and benefits processes, staff training and development, and create and enforce appropriate workplace policies and procedures.
Human resources manager job responsibilities
HR manager responsibilities will vary from company to company, but they are generally responsible for a core set of duties, including:
- Developing talent acquisition strategies, including recruiting and hiring
- Creating and implementing staff training and professional development programs
- Ensuring smooth onboarding processes
- Engaging in job design and talent planning
- Managing payroll processes
- Conducting performance reviews
- Developing and enforcing workplace policies
- Handling employee disciplinary meetings, terminations, conflicts, and investigations
- Conducting exit interviews
- Maintaining compliance with federal, state, and local employment laws
- Producing departmental reports and evaluations for executive staff
Human resources manager job requirements
Depending on your industry and the size of your business, the requirements for your HR manager will vary. Here are a few common HR manager job requirements that you’ll need to alter depending on your organization’s needs:
- A degree in human-resources management or equivalent
- Demonstrable experience as an HR manager or experience in another HR management role (HR generalist, HR specialist, etc.)
- Experience with using HR software tools, including Applicant Tracking Systems
- Knowledge of HR and talent analytics and recruitment metrics
- In-depth knowledge of labor and health and safety laws
- Knowledge of HR best practices, policies and procedures, regulatory changes, and talent-management practices
- Experience in researching and creating compensation and benefits packages
Key HR manager skills
Part of the HR manager recruitment process involves knowing what skills candidates need.
Here’s a list of the key skills you should look for in HR manager candidates.
- Strong leadership and communication skills
- Interpersonal skills, including the ability to manage interpersonal relationships
- The ability to make strategic decisions
- Highly effective verbal and written communication skills
- The ability to analyze a broad range of data to support talent management activities
- Experience in benefits and compensation management
- The ability to manage employee development and performance
- Strong organizational and problem-solving skills and excellent attention to detail
Where to find great HR managers
Once you’ve created a great HR manager job description and job posting, it’s time to source the best talent on the market.
Here are a few strategies for finding and hiring an HR manager.
1. Post your job online
The first step is posting your job ad on relevant job boards, including:
2. Ask for referrals
Employee referrals are a key part of an inbound recruitment strategy and are often cited as one of the most effective sources of great hires.
Circulate the HR manager job description and job posting to your employees and ask them if they have any candidates in mind that fit the job specifications. Many organizations offer incentives for candidate referrals to encourage employees to share their personal recommendations.
3. Promote your company in the right channels to attract applicants
These days, job boards aren’t the only places candidates use to search for new jobs. Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are excellent tools for employer branding and promoting your company, its values, and culture to help attract fresh new talent.
4. Participate in human resources organizations
Joining and participating in HR organizations like the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) and The Human Capital Institute (HCI) gives you access to a wealth of HR resources and networks to connect with fellow members. After all, word of mouth is a great recruitment tool.
5. Attend human resources conferences
Attending HR conferences is not just important for getting up to speed with the latest HR trends and technologies, but it’s also a great way of networking with a huge pool of prospective talent.
How to evaluate candidates: Pre-employment tests for hiring HR managers
Pre-employment tests provide hiring teams with a simple way to get a true sense of a candidate’s abilities.
Implementing pre-employment tests early in the hiring process is more effective than CV screening for narrowing down the initial list of applicants, enabling you to highlight the best candidates for the job.
1. Differentiate between exceptional candidates
Pre-employment tests offer you a reliable and quantifiable way to prioritize highly skilled candidates. When relying on resumes to assess applicants, it can be hard to sort the wheat from the chaff since many resumes look incredibly similar. Resumes primarily outline experience rather than skills.
With pre-employment testing, all applicants are asked the same questions, enabling you to focus on concrete skills and analyze candidates’ results side by side.
2. Reduce your HR manager recruitment costs
Lowering recruiting and hiring costs by reducing time to hire is often a top priority for HR departments.
Assessing applicants with pre-designed tests created by industry experts helps you minimize time spent evaluating candidates’ skills individually while protecting your hiring budgets.
3. Hire without bias
Reducing hiring bias ensures that all applicants receive an equal and fair chance of representing their suitability for the role.
When you test applicants’ skills with pre-employment tests, you can hide applicants’ identifying data when reviewing results. This helps ensure that only the results influence your decision to invite individuals to progress to the next stage of the hiring process.
How to build a skills assessment for HR manager candidates
With TestGorilla, it’s easy to start creating skills assessments for your HR manager candidates.
In addition to our pre-designed HR Fundamentals test, you can also choose from several Personality tests, Cognitive Ability tests, and Situational Judgment tests.
TestGorilla’s HR Fundamentals test covers the following areas:
- Human Resources expertise
- Business acumen
- Recommending actionable solutions
- Managing relationships
Create your own skills assessment for HR manager candidates
In addition to asking candidates to complete our pre-designed tests, you can also create your own customized assessments to assess candidates based on your business needs.
Here are just a few benefits of using TestGorilla to create your own customized assessments:
- Over 100 different test templates for different job roles, customizable to your hiring requirements
- The option to add customized questions
- Choose from five different question types (multiple choice, video, file upload, code, and essay)
- Assign points to different answers to help you better rate your candidates’ answers
- Add qualifying questions to determine applicant eligibility
Plus, TestGorilla’s HR Fundamentals test and Talent Acquisition test are included in our free plan, so you can create an entirely free assessment for HR managers – including a set of your own custom questions.
With TestGorilla, you’ll find hiring an HR manager simpler, faster, and more effective than ever. Get started for free today and start developing your own pre-employment assessment.
