How to Make a Hiring Manager Root *for* You
What I learned about hiring by doing it. The behind-the-scenes version, with no promises attached.
Here’s what nobody tells you: by the time a hiring manager is deciding between two candidates, the decision is rarely about who is more qualified. It’s about who they can picture, who they can explain to their boss, and who made it easy to say yes.
I’ve been on that side of the table. I’ve read the resumes, sat in the debriefs, and watched genuinely excellent people lose roles for reasons that had nothing to do with their excellence. I’ve also watched candidates walk in and quietly win the room before the second question.
This session is everything I’ve learned about what actually moves a hiring decision, and how to make the person deciding want to advocate for you.
A note on what this is not: I can’t get you a job, and I won’t pretend a session can. Hiring is genuinely partly luck, timing, and budget you’ll never see. What I can do is take one variable, how you’re read by the person deciding, and put it back in your hands.
In the room:
What a hiring manager is actually screening for, and how little of it is on the job description.
The moments that decide it. The debrief conversation, the reference call, the follow-up note, and where candidates lose ground without knowing.
How to give the person who likes you something to fight for you with, because someone has to make your case when you’re not in the room.
You’ll walk out with:
A realistic picture of how the decision gets made, specific things to do differently in your next process, and a much clearer sense of what was never your fault.
Come with the process you’re in the middle of. We’ll work through real ones.
Hosted by Kelsey Worsham, co-founder of The Birdie Brief, who has hired and been hired in this market.