Hiring manager feedback on the hire, and on the search that found them
The candidate is not the only person who just went through your hiring process. This is what to ask the hiring manager on the day their new hire joins, and how those answers read beside the candidate’s own, inside the wider candidate experience platform.
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What to ask a hiring manager when their new hire joins
Two things are worth measuring, and they are not the same thing: whether the search produced the right person, and whether the process to find them was one the manager would go through again. A weak score on the first is a calibration problem. A weak score on the second is a recruiting operations problem, and it is the one that quietly costs you candidates. Where to start on it is covered in improve candidate experience.
- Q1The person who joined matches the brief we agreed at the start of the search.0 to 10
- Q2The shortlist I was given was strong enough to choose from.0 to 10
- Q3The role was defined clearly enough before we started advertising it.0 to 10
- Q4I had the information I needed about each candidate before every interview.0 to 10
- Q5The time from opening the role to accepting an offer was reasonable.0 to 10
- Q6I was kept informed about the progress of the search without having to chase.0 to 10
- Q7Interviews were scheduled without unreasonable demands on my calendar.0 to 10
- Q8The assessment process gave me a fair read on each candidate's ability.0 to 10
- Q9My new hire had what they needed to start work on day one.0 to 10
- Q10The expectations set with the candidate during hiring matched the actual role.0 to 10
- Q11How likely are you to recommend this hiring process to another manager?0 to 10
- Q12What is the one thing you would change about how this role was filled?Open text
- Q13Was there a point in the process where you nearly lost your preferred candidate?Open text
- Q14What did the recruiting team do well on this search?Open text
A starting point, not a fixed form. Every question here is one you would write yourself in the survey builder, and the wording is yours to change.
Joining day, because that is when the memory is accurate
The survey goes out when a new hire’s joining date arrives. The platform checks joining dates once a day and sends to the hiring manager mapped to that candidate, so nobody has to remember to run it. Ask a quarter later and you no longer get feedback about the search, you get an opinion about the hire. The same program already sends the candidate experience survey to candidates through the stages before this one.
Two answers about one hire, side by side
The hiring manager and the candidate went through the same search from opposite ends. Read separately they are two opinions. Read together they locate the problem, which is the reason to run both from one platform rather than a form tool and a spreadsheet.
Sample figures. The weak column is a hiring team, not a hiring manager: one function being kept in the dark is a process problem, not five individual ones.
Where the answers can be broken down
By hiring manager
Hiring Manager is a standard reporting dimension, so results break down by the manager the hire reported into.By recruiter
Primary Recruiter and Primary Recruiter Manager are dimensions too, which is what turns a low process score into an owner.By job and location
Job, job family and location cut the same answers, so a slow search in one region does not hide inside a company average. The full set is in the candidate experience metrics.Held to a threshold
A candidate-specific reporting threshold applies, set separately from the employee one, so a manager who hired once this quarter is not identifiable in a breakdown.
Hiring manager surveys, answered
What is a hiring manager feedback survey?
A hiring manager feedback survey asks the manager who owned a vacancy what they thought of the search that filled it: whether the brief was understood, whether the shortlist was strong, whether they were kept informed, and whether the person who joined matched what was agreed. It is the internal counterpart to the survey you send candidates, and reading the two together is what makes either one actionable. CultureMonkey sends it automatically when a new hire's joining date arrives, as part of a wider candidate experience platform.
Is this the same as a hiring manager satisfaction survey?
Broadly yes, and the terms are used interchangeably. "Hiring manager satisfaction survey" usually describes measuring how satisfied hiring managers are with recruiting: shortlist quality, speed, communication, and the calibre of people who join. That is what the question set on this page measures. Be aware the phrase is also sometimes used for a manager effectiveness survey, which is a different exercise entirely, asking a manager's own team how well that manager leads. If that is what you are after, the manager effectiveness material is the right place.
When should the survey be sent?
When the new hire joins. That is late enough for the manager to judge whether the person matched the brief, and early enough that they still remember what the search was like. CultureMonkey checks joining dates daily and sends to the hiring manager mapped to that candidate, running early in the day so records synced overnight from your HRIS are included. Sending at the offer stage measures the process but not the outcome; sending at a performance review measures the hire but no longer the process.
How many questions should a hiring manager survey have?
Five to eight, with at least one open text question. Hiring managers are a small, busy population and a long form gets abandoned or skimmed, which is worse than not asking. Keep the wording identical between quarters so a change in the score is a real change rather than an artefact of a rewrite. The question set on this page is deliberately longer than any single survey should be, so there is something to choose from.
Can hiring managers see the candidate results too?
Results break down by Hiring Manager as a standard reporting dimension, so candidate feedback can be read by the manager a hire reported into. A candidate-specific reporting threshold applies, set separately from the employee threshold, so cohorts below the minimum are not shown and a single candidate's answers cannot be traced back to them. The same rule protects the hiring managers answering this survey.
Does the hiring manager survey replace the candidate survey?
No, and running only the manager side is the more common mistake. The hiring manager can tell you the shortlist was thin and the process dragged. Only the candidate can tell you why they nearly walked away at the offer stage, or what the interview felt like from the other side of the table. The candidate experience survey covers the stages before joining day, and candidate NPS is the score that compares across them.
Hear from the hiring manager and the candidate on the same hire
One platform, both sides of the search, read against each other.