Managers are critical to any company’s success. Effective managers can inspire their teams to grow in their careers. But bad managers can contribute to turnover, low morale, and even damage your company’s reputation.
Knowing how to hire a manager can help you build a diverse team of workers that can strengthen your company’s culture. While different industries require different managerial skill sets, there are certain aspects all great managers have that will make them successful. Let’s review the best techniques for finding top manager talent for your company.
In this blog post, you’ll learn:
- The various managerial roles and how their responsibilities differ.
- Ten essential tips for hiring effective managers, such as crafting detailed job descriptions and avoiding biases.
- Insights into valuing leadership qualities, fostering diversity, and recruiting talent.
What are the different types of managers?
A manager is responsible for managing a team of employees or operations. Their goal is to maintain efficient business functions for a company and ensure that staff members complete tasks correctly and on time.
Some managers are “people managers.” These are individuals with employees who work under them as direct reports. However, other types of managers don’t oversee people. These positions can include project managers, operations managers, and account managers.
The three most common types of people managers are:
- Senior managers: These are ‘C-suite’ executives responsible for running the company’s daily operations. Senior managers often differ from a board of directors, which has overall company authority rather than a manager-level role.
- Middle managers: These individuals may be branch managers, regional managers, or country managers (if in an international company). They often hold middle management positions within an organization.
- Lower managers: The lower managers, sometimes called frontline managers or team leaders, manage the duties of regular employees.
A manager's daily tasks depend on business needs and industry. However, some duties are standard. For example, people managers must be able to lead their teams effectively and ensure their direct reports are performing at their best.
On an administrative level, managers must be able to:
- Work with other department managers to set policies, goals, and objectives.
- Analyze pertinent data, such as finances, sales reports, and performance reviews.
- Monitor productivity and determine how to be more efficient.
Ten essential tips to help you hire a great manager
Hiring the right person for a manager position is crucial for the success of any team or organization. But you must know where to start. Whether you're filling a leadership position for the first time or refining your hiring process, the steps below will set you on the right path.
Step 1: Create a positive workplace culture
One of the best ways to attract and hire great managers is to create an appealing company culture. Good employees are drawn to businesses with a positive workplace culture. This is particularly true for manager-level employees. These individuals are leadership-driven, so they thoroughly research a company before applying to an open position.
To create a healthy company culture, you should:
- Inspire your employees to succeed
- Promote good work-life balance
- Provide ample opportunities for professional development
- Create safe spaces
- Openly recognize and reward good work
Step 2: Offer an attractive health benefit
Boosting your benefits package is another excellent way to entice qualified managers. You can show your manager candidates that your company cares by offering a personalized health benefit, like a health reimbursement arrangement (HRA).
With a stand-alone HRA, employers offer employees a monthly allowance for qualified out-of-pocket medical costs, including health insurance premiums. Once an employee submits proof of an eligible expense, you reimburse them tax-free up to their set allowance amount. An HRA, like the individual coverage HRA (ICHRA), is an excellent alternative to traditional group health insurance. It’s often more cost-effective and flexible. Plus, it empowers employees to take a more active role in their healthcare decisions.
Here are a few ways HRAs benefit managers and other employees:
- Unlike traditional group health plans, HRAs allow employees to choose their preferred individual health plan on a public or private exchange. This means choosing plans that fit their budgets and work with their preferred providers. If you choose to reimburse employees for more than just premiums, they can also choose from more than 200 medical expenses eligible for reimbursement. This gives your staff more freedom over their healthcare choices.
- Your employees’ individual health plans aren’t employment-based. While they can’t keep their HRA funds if they leave your company, employees can keep their existing coverage as long as they continue paying the monthly premiums.
- HRA reimbursements are income-tax-free for participating employees.
- HRAs can support remote and multi-state teams, allowing them to choose a health plan and provider networks in their location.
HRAs are a modern, personalized approach to health benefits that can support your managers at every level of your organization. By offering a flexible health benefit, your company will stand out among your competitors.
Step 3: Draft a compelling job description
Once you’ve reviewed your company culture and updated your benefits package, it’s time to write a winning job description. To hire a great manager, the description must accurately represent the role. This will help candidates determine if your company will fit their career interests and work style.
Your job post should include:
- Daily job requirements
- Necessary qualifications and skills
- Education or certification requirements
- Your company’s leadership style
- Your workplace culture and environment
- Whether the position is in-office, hybrid, or remote
Other elements to include in your job posting are your company’s values and goals and any information that would interest a management candidate. This may include work hours, benefits, compensation, and job location.
Step 4: Promote from within your organization
Depending on the role, company size, and business needs, you may not need to look outside your organization for great managers. While it’s best to consider a mix of internal and external candidates, promoting from within can be beneficial.
When you promote a current employee to a manager position, you show your other employees that there’s room for growth in your company with hard work and determination. Seeing their teammates get promoted can also improve employee retention.
As an employer, internal promotions allow you to eliminate the costly expense of hiring and onboarding a new employee at the manager level. Your new manager will already be familiar with company values and culture. They’ll also know business operations that can help them ease the transition into their new role. It’s easier to hire for an entry-level position to replace the employee you just promoted.
Step 5: Expand your talent pool
If you’ve exhausted your internal candidates with no luck, it’s time to expand your search. Looking outside local candidates widens the applicant pool interested in your position and gives you more options.
If you’re hiring for an in-office position, the cost to relocate top talent may be worth the experience they’ll bring to your company. Depending on the job, you can also consider remote candidates. Making the role remote can help you save relocation costs and encourage those unable or unwilling to move to apply for the position.
Lastly, tap into your internal network for recommendations. With a referral program, you can offer a monetary incentive to your employees if they recommend someone you end up hiring. This can be particularly effective for your current managers who may know other qualified managers. If all else fails, you can always hire a recruitment agency for help.
Step 6: Value leadership qualities
Hiring managers often make the mistake of hiring someone based only on their skills for the position. However, it’s a good idea to look for qualities that show the person will be a good leader of your current team.
Soft skills like effective communication, organization, goal setting, and delegation are crucial for any successful manager. But, soft skills can be challenging to learn because they can depend on a person’s personality.
During your search, look beyond the job requirements and consider applicants with the makings to be a good manager. This may not work for every position. But, in some cases, it’s better to hire someone with the right temperament and then have them learn the skills on the job.
Leadership qualities to look for in an effective manager include:
- Trust: Good leaders don’t micro-manage. They set up their team to operate autonomously and are comfortable delegating tasks.
- Communication skills: They can communicate their expectations to different company levels and motivate their team. This way, everyone is working toward the same objective.
- Commitment: They commit to their teams, goals, and stakeholders. When dedicated to their company’s culture, they’re a role model to those around them.
- Focus: They know the big picture but can focus on smaller tasks that lead to the company’s primary goal. Effective managers also excel at time management and emphasize professional achievement.
- Creativity: Creative managers can come up with innovative solutions to complex problems.
- Empathy: They listen to their employees and understand the importance of openness and transparency.
- Responsibility: They’re responsible for their team’s performance. They know how to check in with their team to see how they can help them advance and develop professionally.
- Confidence: All managers have to make tough choices regularly. But, good managers are confident that their decisions support the team’s and company’s success.
Step 7: Ask candidates thought-provoking questions
Once it’s time for an initial interview, ensure your questions are relevant and engaging. You’ll want to learn more about the candidate’s personality, background, and skills. But you also must find out how they’ll work with your current employees. So, asking a variety of questions is vital.
Because soft skills are essential in a managerial role, ask behavioral questions to learn how an ideal candidate would apply their past experiences to solve challenges they would encounter at your organization.
Behavioral questions could include questions like:
- Can you tell me about a time you handled a challenging situation? What did you do to overcome it?
- Can you explain when you’ve made a mistake and what you did to fix it?
- Give an example of when you motivated someone in their career and how you did it.
- What are you passionate about? How can that passion make you successful in this role?
Next, you should ask about specific knowledge or leadership skills relating to the position to judge their qualifications. Finally, you should learn about their management style, such as how they lead and past experiences with their direct reports.
Ask open-ended questions that delve into the candidate’s management style, such as:
- Describe your management style and experience from previous roles.
- How do you work best with direct reports?
- What’s your favorite part about managing people?
- Tell me about a time you had to deliver negative feedback and how you approached it.
Throughout the interview process, your questions should help you determine how the candidate will fit in with your team and how they can help your company achieve its goals.
Step 8: Avoid common hiring biases
Gallup found that 82% of businesses make the wrong management hire1. This is partly due to hiring biases. Hiring bias is a personal prejudice against certain people, groups, or characteristics—whether conscious or unconscious—that negatively impacts the recruitment process.
Bias can creep in during the screening process or interview stages, and it can be tricky to catch if it's unconscious.
Three common hiring biases include:
- Social comparison bias: This is when you dismiss a highly qualified candidate because you’re worried they may threaten your status in the company.
- Beauty bias: This occurs when you unconsciously feel that the most attractive candidate is the most qualified and, therefore, will be the most successful in the role.
- Conformity bias: This bias happens when you recommend a candidate simply because other hiring team members think they’re the most qualified applicant.
You can avoid biases during the hiring process by creating qualification benchmarks and using them to screen every job applicant equally. Once you’re down to a few managerial candidates, have them complete a series of skill tests relating to the position. This can help you compare how each performs under the same circumstances.
Step 9: Focus on building a diverse and dynamic team
When hiring a manager, you should strive to hire someone who will provide different perspectives and experiences so you’ll have a diverse workforce. If you build a team of leaders who think the same as you, you’ll stunt your business’s growth and likely miss out on hiring great people.
When building a diverse workforce, you should:
- Expand your network so you’ll be open to a greater variety of job seekers.
- Celebrate your employees for their differences and backgrounds.
- Search for highly skilled workers who can solve problems creatively.
- Encourage open communication and listen to feedback from managers and employees.
A diverse team of managers will provide you with various ideas during collaborative brainstorming sessions. Choosing managers of different backgrounds will also highlight your company as inclusive and an employer of choice.
Step 10: Never stop recruiting
You’ll be more successful hiring the best managers if you’re proactively looking for talent when they’re searching for a role. If you only look for candidates when an open position is available, you’ll limit your candidate pool because you’ll only be looking for those who match your job description.
Your perfect candidate is likely already working at another company. So, expand your list of potential candidates by networking at industry events and building relationships with management professionals. That way, you’ll know who these people are when you have an open position, in case they’re looking for a change.
Conclusion
The kind of manager you hire can make or break your organization. A good manager supports their team through day-to-day operations. But they also help the company grow, increase business performance, and motivate their coworkers to reach their full potential.
Choosing the right candidate can be a difficult decision. But it’s vital to take the appropriate steps when hiring anew manager so you’ll be better set up for success. From offering personalized health benefits to revamping your interview process, making time to attract the best candidates is worth the extra effort.
This article was originally published on January 8, 2015. It was last updated on April 28, 2025.
